i 


Columiia  Winibmit^  Hectures 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL 
THEORY 

JULIUS  BEER  FOUNDATION 
1910-1911 


COLUMBIA 

UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

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HENRY  FROWDE 

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ci. 


COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY  LECTURES 


SOCIAL    EVOLUTION    AND 
POLITICAL    THEORY 


BY 
LEONARD   T.    HOBHOUSE 

FBOFESSOR   OP   SOCIOLOGY   IN   THE   UNIVEKSITT  OF   LONDON 


WO. 


THE   COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1911 

All  rights  reserved 


^<^<, 


CJOPTBIGHT,    1911, 

By  the  COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  PRESS. 
Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  November,  1911. 


•  •    • 


Nottnootr  iPress 

J.  8.  CuBhing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


NOTE 

The  present  volume  contains  the  substance  of  eight 
lectures  given  on  the  Beer  Foundation  under  the  Faculty 
of  Political  Science  of  Columbia  University  during  April, 
1911.  The  lecture  form  is  preserved,  but  with  additions 
which  necessitate  a  division  into  nine  chapters.  A  por- 
tion of  the  argument  of  Chapter  VI  is  set  out  in  more 
detail  in  the  writer's  "Morals  in  Evolution,"  and  the 
subject  of  Chapter  IX  is  treated  under  a  somewhat  differ- 
ent aspect  in  a  recent  volume  on  "Liberalism"  in  the 
"Home  and  University  Library." 


241286 


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in  2007  with  funding  from 

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TO  THE  FACULTY  OF  POLITICAL   SCIENCE: 

May  I  take  this  opportunity  of  expressing  my  grati- 
tude to  the  members  of  the  Faculty  of  Political  Sci- 
ence of  Columbia  University,  and  to  the  Trustees  of 
the  Beer  Foundation  for  an  experience  of  deep  and  abid- 
ing interest  ?  I  cannot  flatter  myself  that  I  could  teach 
your  students  very  much  in  the  brief  course  of  lectures 
here  reprinted,  but  I  am  certain  that  I,  on  my  side,  learned 
a  great  deal.  The  freshness,  the  vitality,  the  largeness 
of  conception,  the  intellectual  as  well  as  social  hospitality 
that  characterize  American  academic  life,  have  been  to 
me  stimulating  and  invigorating  beyond  all  expectation. 
I  can  wish  nothing  better  to  those  who  follow  me  on  the 
Beer  Foundation  than  that  they  should  receive  an  im- 
pression as  fortunate  and  profound. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

L.  T.  HOBHOUSE. 
Geindblwald,  July  26, 1911. 


vii 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTBB 

I.    The  Meaning  of  Progress  .  ^ 


II.  Progress  and  the  Struggle  for  Existence 

III.  The  Value  and  Limitations  of  Eugenics 

^   IV.  Social  Harmony  and  the  Social  Mind    . 

V.  Social  Morphology 

VI.  The  Growth  of  the  State     ^  , 

VIL  Evolution  and  Progress     ,  ^  , 

VIII.  Social  Philosophy  and  Modern  Problems 

V  IX.  The  Individual  and  the  State    V^  . 


PAOB 

1 

17 
40 
80 
102 
126 
149 
166 
185 


SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND 
POLITICAL  THEORY 

CHAPTER  I 

The  Meaning  of  Progress 

Like  every  age  and  every  state  of  human  society  the 
period  in  which  we  Hve  has  its  merits  and  defects,  its 
elements  of  success  and  failure.  Contemporary  critics 
assuming  the  part  of  candid  friends  are  perhaps  more 
concerned  with  the  failures,  and  the  note  of  pessimism 
sounds  clearly  enough  in  much  of  the  literature  of  the 
day.  But  depreciation  of  the  present,  gloomy  views 
of  the  future,  and  idealization  of  the  past  are  common 
characteristics  of  literary  criticism.  If  literature  is  evi- 
dence, we  could  construct  a  chain  of  testimony  proving 
the  continuous  deterioration  of  humanity  from  the  time 
of  Hesiod  to  the  present  day.  The  past,  when  it  is 
seen  at  all,  appears  always  in  a  halo  of  romance.  Just 
as  in  our  own  personal  memory  many  things  which  we 
should  be  exceedingly  loath  to  experience  anew  become 
positively  enjoyable  in  the  mellowness  of  retrospect, 
as  the  contrast  of  some  great  hardship  forms  a  pleasing 
background  for  present  comfort,  so  in  the  memory  of  the 
race  much  that  we  should  be  sorry  to  live  through  again 
in  real  earnest  acquires  the  tinge  of  romance  when 

1 


2;/;  :*^0t3i;^E  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

viewed  at  a  safe  distance.  Whereas  the  discomforts, 
the  ughness,  and  the  squalor  of  the  present  afflict  us  with 
'all  the  insistence  of  grim  reality,  the  corresponding  ele- 
ments in  the  past  are  either  forgotten  or  are  softened  and 
transfigured  by  the  haze  of  time.  Hence  it  is  that  our 
view  of  historical  change  tends  to  be  distorted  in  the 
direction  of  pessimism,  and  in  any  attempt  at  a  scientific 
I  measure  of  social  progress  we  must  be  on  our  guard 
f  ,Vi  against  this  bias  of  social  memory.  Those  who  are  most 
zealous  for  social  improvement  will  indeed  be  the  last 
to  minimize  the  evils  that  exist.  But  without  yielding 
to  any  such  temptation  there  is,  I  would  suggest,  one 
compensatory  element  of  which  the  prevalence  of  a 
somewhat  pessimistic  criticism  is  itself  the  proof. 
^There  was  probably  never  a  time  at  which  among  civi- 
Mized  peoples  there  was  so  much  diffused  sensitiveness 
to  any  form  of  social  ailment.  If  we  were  briefed  to 
defend  our  own  time,  the  line  to  take  would  surely  be, 
not  that  its  evils  are  few  or  small,  but  rather  that  every 
evil  calls  forth  a  strong  and  persistent  effort  to  cure  it._ 
Such  effort  is  not  indeed  new,  but  it  may  be  fairly  main- 
tained that  it  persists  and  grows  in  volume  and  serious- 
ness, that  it  enlists  an  increasing  proportion  of  human 
effort  and  ability,  and  that  as  it  gathers  strength  and 
substance  it  is  less  content  to  deal  with  symptoms  and 
effects,  and  becomes  more  intent  on  the  discovery  and 
eradication  of  causes.  In  every  civilized  country  there! 
is  an  army  of  men  and  women  at  work,  some  trusting  to 
voluntary  effort  and  mutual  aid,  others  pinning  their 
faith  to  governments  and  agitating  for  legislative  re- 
forms, and  yet  others  content  for  the  time  to  investigate 
facts,  examine  into  causes,  and  pave  the  way  for  a  more. 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS 


jEtssured  progress  in  the  future.  The  pessimistic  writer 
will  not  deny  the  existence  or  the  sincerity  of  these 
manifold  forms  of  social  effort,  but  it  is  open  to  him 
to  question  their  efficiency.  On  this  point  a  good  deal 
might  be  said.  I  think  it  would  be  possible,  so  far  at 
least  as  my  own  country  is  concerned,  to  show  by  a  series 
of  comparisons  of  the  condition  of  the  people  in  thei 
earlier  stages  of  the  industrial  revolution  with  their  1 
condition  at  the  present  day  that  the  efforts  of  the  re-i 
formers  have  not  been  wasted.  I  shall  not,  however, 
attempt  this  task  at  present,  for  I  am  going  instead 
to  make  an  admission.  If  my  supposed  critic  were  to 
scrutinize  the  terms  in  which  I  described  the  efforts  of 
reformers,  there  is  one  word  on  which  he  might  fasten 
with  some  effect.  I  spoke  of  ^'an  army  of  men  and 
women. ^'  "What  army?'^  he  might  reply.  "I  see 
clearly  enough,  great  numbers  of  men  and  women  who 
interest  themselves  in  public  questions.  But  an  army 
means  a  drilled  and  organized  force,  moving  towards  a 
clear  objective.  This,''  he  might  say,  "is  precisely 
what  I  do  not  find  among  the  enthusiasts  for  social  re- 
form. What  I  find  is  something  much  more  like  a  mob, 
or,  if  we  are  to  keep  to  military  metaphors,  something 
like  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  guerilla  bands,  acting 
without  concert,  often  at  cross  purposes,  sometimes  com- 
ing into  violent  conflict,  and  at  best  with  no  clear  sense 
of  any  common  cause.  There  are  individuals  and  or- 
ganized bodies,  if  you  will,  who  concentrate  their  ener- 
gies on  temperance,  but  who  concentrate  so  completely 
that  they  care  for  nothing  else.  There  are  those  who 
combat  pauperism  and  preach  thrift.  There  are  en- 
thusiasts who  find  land  questions  at  the  root  of  all  good 


4         SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

and  all  evil.  There  are  the  apostles  of  housing  and  sani- 
tary reform.  There  are  Tariff  Reformers  —  an  expres- 
sion which  has,  so  to  say,  opposite  signs  in  England  and 
the  United  States.  There  are  Trade  Unionists,  Cooper- 
ators.  Socialists,  and  again  there  is  the  insistent  school 
of  Eugenists,  who  treat  all  social  reforms  as  mere  sub- 
sidiary changes  of  the  environment  and  insist  that  the 
modification  of  the  race  by  selection  is  the  only  matter 
of  vital  moment.  In  a  word  there  are  thousands  and 
tens  of  thousands  vaguely  interested  in  social  progress, 
and  keenly  interested  in  some  particular  question  which 
has  come  within  the  field  of  their  special  experience  or  to 
which  they  have  been  led  to  give  personal  attention. 
Here  and  there  is  to  be  found  a  broader-minded  person 
who  recognizes  the  wholeness  of  things,  but  his  influence 
is  small.  The  driving  force  is  all  with  the  sectional 
spirit,  and  that  is  why  you  get  little  or  no  general 
progress.^' 

With  one  part  of  this  indictment  I  should  agree. 
Notwithstanding  all  narrowness  and  short-sightedness  I 
think  that  something  has  been  done,  but  it  has  been 
done  at  the  expense  of  a  vast  and  disproportionate  waste 
of  effort.  If  this  waste  is  to  be  avoided  and  the  aggre- 
gate of  social  effort  is  now  to  have  the  measure  of  success 
which  it  deserves,  it  must  be  through  the  growth  of  a 
common  understanding,  through  the  emergence  of  clearer 
ideas  of  social  progress  as  a  whole,  and  by  consequence 
of  the  mutual  relations  of  its  constituent  parts.  People 
are  apt  to  turn  from  such  questions  as  abstract  and  aca- 
demic, but  there  are  seemingly  academic  questions 
which  are  charged  with  very  real  meaning,  and  the  unity 
of  social  organisms  and  the  interrelation  for  good  and  for 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  6 

evil  of  social  changes  is  no  mere  form  of  words,  but  a  way 
of  expressing  a  deep-seated  truth  which  those  who  ig- 
nore it  will  in  practice  strike  on  sooner  or  later.  You 
may  remember  a  certain  simile  employed  by  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer  in  his  ^'  Study  on  Sociology. '^  Give  a  man  a 
sheet  of  metal  with  a  dint  in  it,  he  says,  and  ask  him  to 
flatten.it  out.  What  does  he  do  ?  If  he  knows  nothing 
of  metal  work,  he  takes  a  hammer  and  knocks  the  dint 
fiat,  only  to  find  that  it  has  reappeared  elsewhere.  He 
applies  the  hammer  again  at  the  new  point  with  the  same 
result,  and  so  he  goes  on  till  he  convinces  himself  that 
dints  are  not  to  be  levelled  out  by  this  direct  and  easy 
method.  So  it  is,  urges  Mr.  Spencer,  with  society.  We 
find  some  evil  or  evils  which  we  seek  to  prevent  by  direct 
and  forcible  means,  only  to  find,  says  this  critic  of  social 
effort,  that  a  corresponding  evil  appears  somewhere  else. 
We  put  down  overt  crime  only  to  find  that  some  form  of 
secret  vice  is  increasing.  A  temperance  crusade  sup- 
presses drunkenness,  and  it  is  discovered  that  those  who 
used  to  drink  now  find  an  outlet  for  excitement  in  gam- 
bling. Compensation  for  accidents  is  secured  by  law  to 
workmen,  and  in  consequence  it  is  alleged  that  elderly 
workmen  are  refused  situations.  Workmen  form  trade 
unions  to  maintain  and  improve  the  conditions  of  their 
work,  and  no  sooner  do  they  succeed  than  their  em- 
ployers imitate  them  and  form  federations  by  which  the 
unions  are  overpowered.  Strikes  are  replaced  by  mu- 
tual agreements  which  are  to  initiate  an  era  of  industrial 
peace,  and  it  is  found  that  the  wider  the  agreement  the 
less  it  meets  the  local  difficulties  of  mine  and  workshop, 
and  we  see  workmen  striking  substantially  against  their 
own  leaders.     I  need  not  here  inquire  whether  in  all 


6         SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

these  instances  the  allegation  is  correct,  nor  whether 
even  if  that  be  so  there  may  not  be  some  net  gain.  I 
am  concerned  only  with  the  simple  and  preliminary 
point,  to  which  Mr.  Spencer  did  well  to  call  attention, 
^that  every  change,  however  good  in  itself,  provokes  un- 
foreseen reactions,  and  that  if  twe  are  to  achieve  per- 
manent and  assured  good  we  must  as  far  as  possible  keep 
in  view  the  life  of  society  as  a  whole  and  seek  not  jeal- 
ously to  magnify  our  own  little  sectional  interest  at  the 
expense  of  the  others,  but  rather  to  correlate  it  with  the 
work    that  others  are  doing  and  endeavor  to  induce 

Vs^in  them  the  same  spirit}  In  sociology  as  in  all  sciences 
specialism  is  a  necessity  and  it  is  also  a  danger.  It  is  a 
necessity  for  the  simple  reason  that  human  capacity  is 
limited  and  it  is  not  given  to  man  to  ac  |uire  sound  knowl- 
edge  and  adequate  skill  in  many  departments  at  once. 

y  It  is  a  danger  because  social  life  is  no  more  divisible  intoH 
independent  sections  than  the  human  body  is  divisible   ! 
into    independent    organisms.     Now    the    belief    thaf'^"' 
''there  is  nothing  Hke  leather"  is  mutato  nomine  uni- 
versal.    To  exaggerate  the  importance  of  what  one  is 
doing  oneself  is  the  necessary  human  illusion.     It  is 
the  stimulant  which  sustains.     Unfortunately  it  is  also 
the  stimulant  which  intoxicates,  and  in  sober  mood  we 
may  well  engage  ourselves  in  the  effort  to  find  some 
prophylactic.     In  the  present  case  the  prophylactic  that 
we  need,  if  I  am  right,  is  an  articulate  social  philosophy 
We  ought   to  inquire  whether  underlying  the  diffused 
mass  of  social  effort  there  is  discoverable  any  coherent 
scheme  of  social  betterment  or  progress  as  a  whole.     If~^ 
again  we  can  find  any  such  general  conception,  we  have 
to  ask  whether  it  will  hold  water,  and  this  will  divide 


V 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  7 

itself  into  two  main  questions.     Before  we  can  decide 
whether  any  purpose  which  men  may  propound  to  them- 
selves is  valid  and  reasonable  we  must  determine,  first, 
pwhether  it  is  self-consistent,  or  whether  if  thought  out 
I  it  would  evolve  any  contradictions  which  would  reduce    , 
i  it  to  meaningless  confusion  ;  and  secondly,  whether  it  lies  || 
/  within  the  limits  of  practical  possibility.     The  first  oiU.      . 
'  these  questions  is  the  subject-matter  of  social  philoso-ll|^^^»      , 
[_j)hy,  the  second  belongs  to  the  theory  of  social  evolution.^'^^'        ^***^ 
I  shall  not  be  able  within  the  compass  of  these  lectures  to 
deal  with  either  question  with  the  fullness  which  it  de- 
serves, but  for  reasons  which  will  appear  as  we  proceed 
I  cannot  limit  myself  to  one  alone.     I  shall  therefore 
(1)  attempt  a  summary  definition  of  the  nature  and  ; 
conditions  of  progress,  and  shall  proceed  (2)  to  consider  ^ 
how  far  progress  as  defined  has  actually  been  realized  in 
history,  and  how  far  it  is  capable  of  further  and  future  } 
realization.     In  place  of  an  attempt  to  cover  the  whole 
ground  in  a  summary  which  would  necessarily  be  vague 
and  thin,  I  shall,  both  in  dealing  with  past  and  present, 
confine  myself  in  the  main  to  one  side  of  social  life, 
merely  glancing  at  others  when  the  progress  of  the  argu- 
ment makes  it  necessary  to  do  so. 

There  are,  however,  certain  difficulties  which  the  con- 
ception of  progress  meets  at  the  outset,  and  it  will  be 
better  to  deal  with  these  before  proceeding  to  our  con- 
*structive  argument. 

For  this  purpose  I  will  ask  you  to  be  content  with  a 
rough  preliminary  definition  of  progress,  and  let  me  do 
what  I  can  within  my  Hmits  to  make  it  a  little  more  pre- 
cise at  a  later  stage.  Now  you  will  have  noticed  that  I 
have  used  the  term  ^^  evolution''  in  regard  to  human  sbci- 


8         SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

ety  and  also  the  term '  ^  progress. ' '  This  should  imply  that 
there  is  some  difference  between  them,  and  in  point  of 
fact,  to  grasp  this  difference  is  in  my  view  the  beginning^^ 
of  understanding  in  these  matters.  By  evolution  Hj 
mean  any  sort  of  growth  ;  by  social  progress,  the  growth 
of  social  life  in  respect  of  those  qualities  to  which  human 
beings  attach  or  can  rationally  attach  value.  Social 
progress,  then,  is  only  one  among  many  possibilities  of 
social  evolution.  At  least  it  is  not  to  be  assumed  that 
any  and  every  form  of  social  evolution  is  also  a  form  or  a  /^ 
stage  in  social  progress.  For  example,  a  caste  system  J 
is  a  product  of  social  evolution,  and  the  more  rigid  and 
narrow  the  caste,  the  more  complex  the  hierarchy,  the 
more  completely  has  tEre  caste  system  evolved.  In 
proportion,  that  is,  as  a  loose  and  incipient  caste  system 
hardens  into  an  extreme  and  rigid  caste  system,  there  is 
a  distinct  process  of  social  evolution  going  forward ; 
but  most  of  us  would  question  very  strongly  whether  it 
could  be  considered  in  any  sense  as  a  phase  of  social  prog-, 
ress.  Judged  from  the  standpoint  of  human  values, 
it  looks  more  like  retrogression,  or  perhaps  still  more 
like  divergence  into  a  side  track,  from  which  there  is  no 
exit  save  by  going  back  over  a  good  deal  of  the  ground 
travelled.  So  again  there  is  at  the  present  day  a  vig- 
orous evolution  of  cartels,  monopolies,  rings,  and  trusts ; 
there  is  an  evolution  of  imperialism,  of  socialism,  of 
nationalism,  of  militarism,  in  a  word,  of  a  hundred 
tendencies  as  to  the  good  or  evil  of  which  people  differ. 
The  fact  that  a  thing  is  evolving  is  no  proof  that  it  is 
good,  the  fact  that  society  has  evolved  is  no  proof  that 
it  has  progressed.  The  point  is  important  because 
under  the  influence  of  biological  conceptions  the  two 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  9 

ideas  are  often  confused,  and  the  fact  that  human  beings 
j^have  evolved  under  certain  conditions  is  treated  as  evi- 
dence of  the  value  of  those  conditions,  or  perhaps  as 
proving  the  futility  of  ethical  ideas  which  run  counter  to 
evolutionary  processes.  Thus  in  an  article  by  a  clever 
exponent  of  eugenic  principles  I  find  a  contemptuous 
reference  to  ^Hhe  childlike  desire  to  make  things  'fair,' 
which  is  so  clearly  contrary  to  the  order  of  a  universe 
which  progresses  by  natural  selection."  ^  In  this  brief 
remark  you  will  observe  two  immense  assumptions,  and 
one  stark  contradiction.  The  first  assumption  is  that 
the  universe  progresses  ■ —  not  humanity,  observe,  nor 
the  mass  of  organic  beings,  nor  even  the  earth,  but  the 
universe.  The  second  assumption  is  that  it  progresses\\ 
by  natural  selection,  a  hypothesis  which  has  not  yet  ade-  j 
quately  explained  the  bare  fact  of  the  variation  of  or-  1 
ganic  forms  on  the  surface  of  this  earth.  The  contradic-// 
tion  is  that  progress  is  incompatible  with  fairness,  the 
basic  element  in  all  judgments  of  value,  so  that  we  are 
called  upon  to  recognize  as  valuable  that  by  which  our 
fundamental  notions  of  value  are  set  at  naught.  It  may  \  I 
be  replied  that  the  process  of  things  has  nothing  to  do 
with  human  ideas  of  value.  That  of  course  is  perfectly  / 
possible,  and  is  the  point  we  shall  have  to  examine.  But 
in  that  case  no  one  has  a  right  to  speak  of  progress,  a 
term  which  connotes  value,  in  relation  to  the  process 
of  things.  If  there  exist  laws  of  mechanical  necessity 
which  involve  the  defeat  of  human,  effort  based  on 
human  judgments  of  value,  then  it  is  true  that  hu- 
man effort  must  be  forever  frustrate,  but  it  is  untrue 
that  human  effort  must  seek  to  ally  itself  with  its  en- 
iMr.  W.  C.  D.  Whetham  in  the  Eugenic  Review,  Nov.  1910. 


10       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

emy.  If  the  process  of  the  universe  is  inherently 
opposed  to  the  ethical  order,  it  follows  that  the  ethical 
order  is  inherently  opposed  to  the  process  of  the  uni- 
verse. In  this  state  of  things  the  position  of  human- 
ity would  be  very  unfortunate.  It  could  not  hope  to 
achieve  any  permanent  good.  But  it  would  still  be  the 
height  of  unreason  for  humanity  to  throw  its  efforts  for 
whatever  they  may  be  worth  on  the  side  of  those  forces 
which  by  hypothesis  are  working  against  the  best  ele- 
ments in  its  life.  The  only  rational  course  in  so  bad  a 
situation  would  be  first  to  see  what  could  be  saved  from 
the  wreck,  or,  if  nothing  could  be  done,  then  to  remain 
passive  and  endure  with  what  patience  we  could  com- 
mand. Why  we  should  take  active  pains  to  forward  a 
process  which  conflicts  with  our  fundamental  concep- 
tions of  what  is  valuable  is  a  question  which  answers 
itself. 

Of  course  this  is  not  the  way  in  which  the  question  or- 
dinarily presents  itself.  By  studying  certain  sides  of 
organic  evolution  people  arrive  at  a  particular  hypothe- 
sis of  the  nature  of  the  process.  They  erect  this  hy- 
pothesis into  an  universal  and  necessary  law,  and 
straightway  call  upon  every  one  else  to  acknowledge  the 
law  and  conform  to  it  in  action.  Unaccustomed  to 
philosophical  analysis,  and  contemptuous  of  that  to 
which  they  are  unaccustomed,  they  do  not  see  that  they 
have  passed  from  one  sense  of  law  to  another,  that  they 
have  confused  a  generalization  with  a  command,  and  a 
statement  of  facts  with  a  principle  of  action.  They 
accordingly  miss  the  starting-point  from  which  a  distinct 
conception  of  progress  and  its  relation  to  human  effort 
becomes  possible.     But  for  any  useful  theory  of  the 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  11 

bearing  of  evolution  on  social  effort  this  conception  is 
vital.    We  can  get  no  light  upon  the  subject  unless  we 
l^l^egin  with  the  clear  perception  that  the  object  of  social 
!  effort  is  the  realization  of  ends  to  which  human  beings 
can  reasonably  attach  value,  that  is  to  say,  the  realiza- 
tion of  ethical  ends  ;  and  this  being  understood,  we  may 
suitably  use  the  term  '^progress''  of  any  steps  leading 
^towards  such  *  realization.     Now  it  may  be  said  that 
human  valuations  are  themselves  often  obscure,  con- 

(  fused,  and  contradictory.  That  is,  in  fact,  the  reason 
why  we  need  a  social  philosophy  to  reduce  them  to  a 
rational  order.  But  we  are  not  asking  for  the  moment 
what  the  rational  judgment  of  man  would  approve.  We 
are  contending  for  the  preliminary  point,  that  without 
its  approval  there  can  be  no  talk  of  progress,  that  to 
hold  up  a  process  to  admiration,  to  praise  it  as  good, 
to  accept  and  forward  it,  is,  in  fact,  to  pass  on  it  a  judg- 
ment of  approval,  and  that  to  do  these  things  and  in  the 
same  breath  to  scorn  the  principle  which  is  the  pivot  of 
any  ethical  approval  is  a  contradiction.  If  this  and 
allied  principles  are  false  and  meaningless,  that  requires 
independent  proof.  If  justice,  fairness,  mutual  aid, 
benevolence,  pity,  are  inherently  confused  and  contra- 
dictory ideas,  they  cannot  serve  as  bases  of  rational  ap- 
proval or  disapproval.  But  this  has  to  be  demon- 
strated, and  there  is  no  beginning  of  demonstration  in 
the  mere  fact  that  such  qualities  as  these  are  opposed  to 
the  naked  struggle  for  existence.  __ 

Our  conclusion  so  far  is  that  the  nature  of  social 
progress  cannot  be  determined  by  barely  examining 
the  actual  conditions  of  social  evolution.  Evolution 
and  progress  are  not  the  same  thing.     They  may  be . 


h 


12       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

opposed.  They  might  even  be  so  fundamentally  op- 
posed that  progress  would  be  impossible,  and  whether 
this  is  so  is  one  of  the  two  questions  which  we  distin- 
guished above,  and  which  I  shall  proceed  to  discuss.  I 
take  occasion  only  to  remind  you  that  the  other  ques- 
tion was  —  In  what  does  progress  consist  ?  and  to  this 
we  have  given  the  preliminary  answer  that  it  means"] 
the  realization  of  an  ethical  order;  and  we  have  now  ' 
further  seen  That  the  nature  of  this  order  is  not  to  be 
determined  by  asking  whether  it  conforms  to  natural 
processes,  but  by  asldng  whethsrj;tj^ieldsj;a^^ 
cohereiit_guidance  to  hupoan  effort.  To  This  question 
we  shall  come  in~due  course.  We  have  now  to  deal 
with  the  preliminary  question  whether  in  the  light  of  the 
facts  of  life  the  idea  of  progress  as  an  advancing  realiza- 
tion of  an  ethical  order  can  be  regarded  as  a  valid  idea. 
That  is  to  say,  is  progress  possible  ?  If  so,  social  effort 
has  an  intelligible  and  self  consistent  goal.  If  not,  it  is 
doomed  to  self-defeat. 

The  optimistic  view  encounters  many  objections. 
One  is  founded  on  history,  or  more  widely  on  a  com- 
parative survey  of  human  society,  which  suggests  the 
doubt  whether  for  the  mass  of  mankind  any  substantial 
progress  has  as  yet  been  realized.  Comparing  the  life 
of  the  savage  with  that  of  the  civilized  man,  it  maintains 
that  the  advantages  are  by  no  means  all  on  one  side, 
and,  to  put  the  view  moderately,  it  urges  that  if  all  the 
centuries  of  effort  that  part  the  civilized  man  from  his 
rude  ancestors  have  produced  such  dubious  results,  we 
can  hope  very  little  from  continuance  on  the  same  path. 
Unless  we  have  some  new  fact  to  produce  which  is  to 
initiate  some  wonder-working  change,  the  lower  we  fix 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  13 

our  expectations  the  less  disappointed  we  shall  be.  A 
variant  of  this  view  founds  itself  more  particularly  on  2. 
the  history  of  civilization.  It  calls  attention  to  the  ups 
and  downs  of  humanity.  It  points  to  the  flower  of 
Greek,  of  Roman,  of  medieval  civilization,  and  to  their 
subsequent  decay.  It  questions  whether  we  have  ad- 
vanced beyond  them,  or  have  built  on  firmer  founda- 
tions, and  it  bids  us  prepare  for  a  similar  dissolution. 
These  are  questions  of  social  evolution  which  require 
very  careful  examination.  I  shall  endeavor  in  a  later 
lecture  to  indicate  the  lines  upon  which  I  think  they 
may  be  profitably  discussed.  But  there  is  another  and 
more  fundamental  objection  to  which  I  will  first  call 
your  attention.  This  is  derived  from  the  biological  con- 
ditions of  human  society.  : 
2^The  biological  argument  has  taken  more  than  one 
shape  and  may  best  be  treated  here  by  a  brief  historical 
retrospect.  Its  appearance  in  the  arena  of  controversy 
was  announced  by  the  terrible  douche  of  cold  water 
thrown  by  Malthus  on  the  speculative  optimism  of  the 
eighteenth  century.  The  generation  preceding  the 
French  Revolution  was  a  time  of  buoyant  and  sanguine 
outlook.  There  floated  before  men  the  idea  of  an  Age 
of  Reason  that  was  near  at  hand,  when  mankind  should 
throw  off  the  incubus  of  the  past  and  resume  a  life  in 
accordance  with  nature  in  a  social  order  founded  on  a 
rational  consideration  of  natural  rights.  Nature  both 
in  the  politics  and  the  economics  of  the  time  assumes  a 
half  personal  and  wholly  benevolent  character,  while 
human  restrictions,  human  conventions,  play  the  part  of , 
the  villain  in  the  piece.  At  this  point  Malthus  inter-i 
vened  by  calling  attention  to  a  ^'natural"  law  of  great 


14       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

significance.  This  was  the  law  that  human  beings  mul- 
tiplied in  a  geometrical  ratio ;  that  it  was  only  by  the 
checks  of  famine,  pestilence,  and  war  that  they  were  pre- 
vented from  overspreading  the  earth,  and  that,  to  cut 
the  matter  short,  whatever  the  available  means  of  sub- 
sistence mankind  would  always,  in  the  absence  of  pru- 
dential checks,  multiply  up  to  the  limit  at  which  those 
means  became  inadequate.  True,  the  means  of  sub- 
sistence might  be  extended.  New  countries  might  be 
opened  up.  New  industrial  processes  might  be  in- 
vented, new  sources  of  food  supply  discovered.  Every 
such  extension  of  the  means  of  living,  the  Malthusian 
argued,  would  only  redouble  the  rate  of  multiplication. 
The  checks  would  cease,  infants  would  cease  to  die. 
Men  and  women  would  marry  earlier,  and  soon  after 
each  extension  of  the  food  supply  we  should  find  the 
population  pressing  as  hard  as  ever  upon  the  barriers. 
The  advance  of  civilization  told  in  the  same  direction. 
The  suppression  of  violent  deaths,  the  progress  of  sani- 
tation —  fortunately  for  their  peace  of  mind  the  early 
Malthusians  lived  before  the  sanitary  era  —  the  decline 
of  war,  the  improvement  of  public  order,  all  tended  to 
sm-vival.  Population  was  increasing,  must  increase, 
and  could  not  be  diminished.  It  could  only  be  held  in 
check  by  the  one  great  barrier  of  the  subsistence  limit 
against  which  the  fringe  of  advancing  population  must 
forever  beat  in  misery.  There  could  be  no  solution  of 
the  social  question.  For  in  the  nature  of  things  there 
must  be  a  line  where  the  surf  of  the  advancing  tide  breaks 
upon  the  shore,  and  that  shore  was  death  from  insuffi- 
ciency of  nourishment.  You  observe  that  in  summa- 
rizing the  argument  I  speak  partly  of  Malthus,  partly  of 


THE  MEANING  OF  PROGRESS  15 

the  Malthusians.  Malthus  himself,  particularly  in  his 
second  edition,  laid  stress  on  the  prudential  checks,  and 
he  cannot  fairly  be  accused  of  fostering  the  pessimistic 
views  often  fastened  upon  him.  But  for  many  a  long 
year  after  he  wrote,  the  efficacy  of  the  prudential  checks 
appeared  to  be  very  slight.  It  was  his  first  edition  that 
was  generally  absorbed  and  that  profoundly  affected  so- 
cial thought  for  nearly  a  century.  Down  to  my  own 
time  the  Malthusian  theory,  as  interpreted  above,  ap- 
peared to  be  the  principal  crux  of  social  progress.  It 
was  not  till  the  seventies  that  there  came  into  operation 
that  general  fall  in  the  birth-rate,  which  has  justified 
Malthus  against  the  Malthusians,  has  put  the  calcula- 
tions of  the  future  growth  of  population  on  a  radically 
different  basis,  and  has  brought  about  among  other 
things  a  complete  reconstruction  of  the  biological  argu- 
ment against  progress.  With  this  argument  I  shall  deal 
in  due  order,  but  I  venture  to  think  in  the  meantime 
that  we  may  learn  a  lesson  from  the  fate  of  Malthusian- 
ism.  Mathematical  arguments  drawn  from  the  assump- 
tion that  human  actions  proceed  with  the  statistical 
regularity  that  might  be  found  in  a  flock  of  sheep  are 
often  exceedingly  difficult  to  refute  in  detail,  and  yet 
they  rest  on  an  insecure  foundation.  Man  is  not  merely 
an  animal.  He  is  also  a  rational  being,  and  accordingly 
he  reacts  to  new  circumstances  in  a  way  that  can  only 
be  determined  by  taking  the  possibility  of  rational  pur- 
pose into  account.  The  Malthusian  theory  was  one 
cause  of  the  defeat  of  its  own  prophecies.  It  was  the 
belief  that  the  population  was  growing  too  fast  that 
operated  indirectly  to  check  its  growth.  Those  who 
fear  that  the  population  is  now  growing  too  slowly 


16       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

may  take  some  comfort  from  the  reflection.  We  are  not 
hastily  to  assume  inevitable  tendencies  in  human  socie- 
ties, because  the  moment  that  society  is  aware  of  its 
tendencies  a  new  fact  is  introduced.  Man,  unlike  other 
animals,  is  moved  by  the  knowledge  of  ends,  and  can 
and  does  correct  the  tendencies  whose  results  he  sees  to 
be  disastrous.  The  alarmist  talk  of  race  suicide  may 
serve  its  purpose  if  only  by  admonishing  us  of  the  fate 
of  a  social  theory  based  on  what  appeared  to  be  a  most 
convincing  biological  calculation. 

But  long  before  the  decline  of  the  birth-rate  set  in,  the 
biological  argument  had  taken  a  completely  new  form. 
The  conception  of  evolution  had  arisen,  and  had  begun 
to  exert  a  profound  influence  on  thought  in  general  and 
on  social  theory  in  particular.  The  conception  of  prog- 
ress encountered  new  difficulties,  and  to  them  we  must 
now  turn. 


CHAPTER  II 

Progress  and  the  Struggle  for  Existence 

The  conception  of  evolution  is  inseparably,  and  not 
unjustly,  associated  in  our  minds  with  the  work  of  Dar- 
win and  the  impulse  given  by  him  in  the  middle  of  the 
nineteenth  century  to  biological  investigation.  Yet, 
as  we  all  know,  the  conception  of  evolution  is  not  con- 
fined to  biology,  nor  in  biology  did  it  originate  with 
Darwin.  Systematic  attempts  to  treat  social  evolution ' 
in  particular,  and  to  treat  it  moreover  by  distinctly 
sociological  methods,  were  familiar  to  the  generation 
preceding  the  publication  of  the  ^'Origin  of  Species." 
Under  the  title  of  the  '' Philosophy  of  History"  attempts 
were  made  in  Germany,  in  France,  and  in  England  to 
arrive  at  an  interpretation  of  the  record  which  should 
exhibit  the  succession  of  social  phenomena  as  the  work- 
ing out  in  human  society  of  permanent  laws  or  tenden- 
cies. Premature  as  these  efforts  may  have  been,  they 
have  at  least  the  merit  of  seeking  the  explanation  of  so- 
cial phenomena  in  the  nature  of  society  itself.  Comte 
and  Buckle  in  particular,  whatever  may  be  said  in  criti- 
cism of  the  use  which  they  made  of  their  data,  were  at 
any  rate  convinced  that  those  data  lay  within  the  rec- 
ords of  humanity  and  were  not  to  be  provided  for  the 
sociologist  by  some  more  general  science.  In  this 
respect  the  work  of  Darwin  may  be  said  to  have  cut 
across  the  normal  and  natural  development  of  socio- 

17 


18       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

logical  investigation.  When  a  great  impulse  is  given  to 
one  science  by  some  epoch-making  experiment  or  some 
new  and  fruitful  generalization,  that  science  is  apt  to  ac- 
quire a  certain  prestige  in  the  minds  of  contemporaries, 
which  gives  it  an  influence  over  thought  in  every  depart- 
ment, particularly  in  those  departments  where  inquiry 
is  still  a  novelty  and  where  there  is  no  fixed  tradition  to 
regulate  the  methods  of  approach. 

Though  Darwin  was  by  no  means  the  founder  of  the 
theory  of  biological  evolution,  he  does  occupy  in  the 
genesis  of  this  theory  a  position  not  incomparable  to 
that  of  Newton  in  the  theory  of  the  solar  system.     For 
if  he  did  not  invent  the  evolutionary  hypothesis  nor  yet 
prove  that  hypothesis  to  be  a  demonstrable  truth,  he 
first,  by  amassing  a  vast  store  of  material  and  by  illumi- 
nating it  with  clear  and  simple  conceptions  drawn  di- 
rectly from  experience,  brought  the  hypothesis  into  con- 
tact with  the  facts  and  consolidated  it  as  a  basis  for 
future  investigation.     He  brought  down  evolution,  as  itl 
were,  from  the  clouds  of  speculation  and  established 
between  it  and  the  data  of  observation  that  kind  of  con-  ; 
tact  which  alone  can  make  an  hypothesis  a  serious  work-  ' 
ing  force  in  the  growth  of  science. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  discussion  of  the  Darwinian 
theory,  but  one  point  which  has  an  important  bearing 
on  the  subsequent  development  of  sociological  method 
must  be  noted.  Cautiously  as  Darwin  expressed  the 
principle  of  Natural  Selection  and  fully  as  he  recognized 
the  possibility  that  other  factors  might  have  influence 
upon  organic  development,  the  main  effect  of  his  work 
in  the  world  of  science  was  to  generate  the  conception  of 
the  progress  of  organic  forms  by  means  of  a  continuous 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  19 

struggle  for  existence  wherein  those  best  fitted  by  natu- 
ral endowment  to  cope  with  their  surroundings  would 
tend,  upon  the  whole,  to  survive.  The  persistence  of 
this  process  and  the  consequent  accumulation  of  the 
small  variations  that  occur  in  every  generation  were 
the  considerations  on  which  he  principally  relied  in 
explaining  the  vast  differences  which  separate  species 
from  species,  genus  from  genus,  order  from  order,  and_ 
class  from  class.  Now  if  such  a  process  could,  in  the 
course  of  ages,  span  the  gulf  that  separates  the  rhizopod 
from  the  man,  what  need  was  there,  it  might  be  urged,  of 
further  factors  in  human  progress.  Man  after  all,  in 
spite  of  his  philosophy,  was  still  an  animal,  still  subject 
to  the  same  laws  of  reproduction  and  variation,  still 
modifiable  in  the  same  manner  by  the  indirect  selection 
of  the  individuals  best  fitted  to  their  environment. 
Here,  it  was  held,  was  a  cause  at  work  underlying  all  the 
relatively  superficial  factors  which  loom  so  large  in  his- 
tory; here  was  a  principle  which  would  at  last  make 
sociology  a  science  by  connecting  it  with  the  established 
and  acknowledged  sciences  of  the  physical  world; 
here  was  an  eminently  modern  conception  which  would 
take  the  treatment  of  social  facts  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
literary  historian  or  the  rhetorical  publicist,  and  estab- 
lish the  investigation  of  social  progress  upon  the  firm 
foundation  of  physical  science.  The  true  method  of 
approaching  the  social  questions  for  the  future  was  to  be 
—  not  the  study  of  history,  not  the  analysis  of  the  funda- 
mental social  conceptions,  not  the  examination  of  social 
institutions,  not  the  comparative  sciences  of  law,  or 
religion,  or  ethics — but  rather  the  investigation  by  bio- 
logical methods  of  the  nature  and  variation  of  human 


20       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

*  faculty,  the  exact  ascertainment  of  the  laws  of  heredity, 
\  and  the  statistical  determination  of  the  way  in  which 
/variations  propagated   by   heredity  would   affect   the 
I  social  stock.     If  it  could  be  shown  that  height  and  chest- 
capacity  and  length  of  limb  were  hereditary  qualities,  so 
also  it  might  be  shown  that  cranial  capacity,  and  with  it 
mental  and  moral  equipment,  were  equally  handed  on 
\  from  parent  to  child.    The  true  problem  of  social  better- 
ment was  to  determine  the  conditions  under  which  the 
better  qualities  are  propagated  and  the  worse  repressed. 
. '  As  to  the  general  nature  of  these  conditions,  indeed, 
there  could  be  no  doubt  for  the  biologist.     He  came  to 
the  science  of  society  with  this  fundamental  question 
already  settled.     He  had  not,  like  the  philosopher,  to 
trouble  himself  about  what  was  best ;  nor,  like  the  social 
investigator,  to  remain  in  doubt  as  to  the  broadest  prin- 
ciples regulating  the  life  of  society.     On  both  these 
questions  his  doubts  were  already  solved  by  what  he 
had  learned  in  biology  itself.     The  best  was  that  which 
survived,  and  the  persistent  elimination  of  the  least  fit 
was  the  one  method  generally  necessary  to  assure  the 
survival  of  the  best.    Armed  with  this  generalization  the 
biologist  found  himself  able  to  view  the  world  at  large  — 
what  Mr.  Whetham  calls,  as  we  saw,  the  process  of  the 
fjuniverse  —  with   much   complacency.     Life   was   con-' 
/stantly  and  necessarily  growing  better.     In  every  spe- 
cies the  least  fit  were  always  being  destroyed  and  the 
standard  of  the  survivors  proportionately  raised.     No 
doubt  there  remained  even  in  human  society  many  fea- 
tures which  are  at  first  sight  objectionable.     But  here 
again  the  evolutionist  was  in  the  happy  position  of  being 
able  to  verify  the  existence  of  a  soul  of  goodness  in 


^ 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE         21 

things  evil.  Was  there  acute  industrial  competition? 
It  was  the  process  by  which  the  fittest  came  to  the  top. 
Were  the  losers  in  the  struggle  left  to  welter  in  dire 
poverty  ?  They  would  the  sooner  die  out.  Were  hous- 
ing conditions  a  disgrace  to  civilization  ?  They  were  the 
natural  environment  of  an  unfit  class,  and  the  means 
whereby  such  a  class  prepared  the  way  for  its  own  extinc- 
tion. Was  infant  mortality  excessive?  It  weeded 
out  the  sickly  and  the  weaklings.  Was  there  pestilence 
or  famine?  So  many  more  of  the  unfit  would  perish. 
Did  tuberculosis  claim  a  heavy  toll?  The  tubercular 
germs  are  great  selectors,  skilled  at  probing  the  weak 
spots  of  living  tissue.  Were  there  wars  and  rumors  of 
wars?  War  alone  would  give  to  the  conquering  race 
its  due,  the  inheritance  of  the  earth.  It  would  maintain 
the  efficiency  of  the  stronger  and  erase  the  less  fit  from 
the  roll  of  nations.  In  a  word  the  only  blot  that  the  evo- 
lutionist could  see  upon  the  picture  was  the  misguided 
enthusiasm,  the  '^maudlin  sentiment,"  to  use  a  favorite 
expression,  which  seeks  to  hold  out  a  hand  to  those  who 
are  down,  and  to  prolong  the  life  of  those  who  are  proved 
unfit  to  exist  by  the  fact  of  their  ill  success  in  the  struggle. 
The  one  sinner  against  progress  is  the  man  who  tries  to 
save  the  lamb  from  the  wolf.  Could  we  abolish  this 
unscientific  individual,  the  prospects  of  the  world  would 
be  unclouded. 

I  am  putting  this  theory  in  language  of  my  own,  and  it 
may  seem  a  little  harsh.  The  most  scientifically  minded 
among  us  retain  traces  of  the  '^maudlin  sentiment" 
in  which  we  are  bred,  and  which  makes  us  hesitate  to 
draw  out  our  arguments  to  their  logical  conclusion. 
It  is  the  more  necessary  that  the  legitimate  inferences 


22       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

to  be  drawn  from  these  hints  and  half -statements  should 
be  quite  nakedly  set  forth,  so  that  we  may  see  precisely 
whither  we  are  being  led.  And  I  think  that  the  view 
which  I  have  stated  is  clearly  implied,  if  only  half  ex- 
pressed, in  much  of  the  biological  criticism  of  society 
from  the  time  of  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  to  the  present  day. 
Not  only  so,  but  it  is  the  logically  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  principles  on  which  that  criticism  is  founded.  If 
by  the  '^fit'^  we  mean  those  who  are  best  adapted  by 
their  own  personal  qualities  to  survive  unaided  in  the 
struggle  for  life  —  and  this  is  the  sense  in  which  the 
term  is  actually  taken  —  then  the  consequences  which 
have  been  indicated  follow  as  does  night  the  day. 
But  they  carry  with  them  a  very  curious  result. 
Every  sort  of  aid  given  by  one  person  to  another 
will  clearly  tend,  so  far  as  it  goes,  to  neutralize  the 
inherent  weakness  of  the  person  who  is  helped.  Those 
who  might  perish  if  left  to  themselves  may  clearly 
through  the  aid  of  others  be  preserved  through  youth 
to  maturity,  and  so  be  enabled  in  their  turn  to  bring 
children  into  the  world.  Thus  it  would  seem  that 
through  mutual  aid  the  weaker  stocks,  which  without 
it  would  be  extinguished,  may  be  enabled  to  propagate 
themselves,  and  the  action  of  natural  selection,  which, 
eliminating  the  weaker  stock,  keeps  the  race  strong, 
is  in  so  far  defeated.  But  if  natural  selection  is  the 
foundation  of  all  progress,  it  follows  that  mutual  aid  is 
the  persistent  enemy  of  progress ;  and  we  arrive  at  the 
result  that  the  more  highly  organized  the  common  life 
of  society  the  more  surely  is  it  destined  to  decay.  Not 
only  so  —  we  must  not  suppose  the  process  to  set  in 
only  when  society  has  reached  a  high  stage  of  organiza- 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  23 

tion,  for  every  successive  step,  which  tends  to  substi- 
tute peace  for  war,  agreement  for  conflict,  forbearance 
for  internecine  struggle,  has  point  by  point  involved  a 
further  restriction  in  the  operation  of  natural  selection, 
a  weakening  of  the  one  force  that  makes  for  progress. 
Indeed,  this  process  begins  before  human  society  is 
reached.  Far  down  in  the  animal  world  we  see  —  to  go 
no  farther  —  the  operation  of  parental  love  keeping 
alive  the  callow  young  which  could  not  exist  for  a  day 
without  maternal  care.  And  stage  by  stage,  as  we  as- 
cend the  animal  kingdom  and  reach  the  level  of  human- 
ity, we  find  this  care  developed  so  that  from  the  first 
days  of  immaturity  it  extends  throughout  months  and 
years  of  childhood.  Yet,  stage  by  stage  as  these  and 
other  forms  of  mutual  aid  extend,  the  resulting  form  of 
life  is  that  which  we  ordinarily  call ' '  higher. ' '  Before  we\ 
apply  biological  conceptions  to  social_afibirs,  we  gener-  \ 
ally  suppose  that  the  higTiest  ethics  is  that  which  ex- 
V  presses  the  completest  mutual  sympathy  and  the  most 
highly  evolved  society,  that  in  which  the  efforts  of  its 
members  are  most  completely  coordinated  to  common 
ends,  in  which  discord  is  most  fully  subdued  to  har- 
mony. Accordingly  we  are  driven  to  one  of  two  alter- 
natives. Either  our  valuations  are  completely  false, 
our  notions  of  higher  and  lower  unmeaning,  or  progress, 
the  process  of  betterment,  doesjiatdepend  on  menaE^d 
struggle  Jar  existence.  Tli^  biologist  wouM  cheerfully 
accept  the  first  alternative.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
he  is  disposed  to  tell  us  that  we  vainly  seek  to  distort 
truth  by  importing  our  ethical  standards.  He  is  quite 
ready  to  insist  that  we  must  subordinate  our  judgments 
of  value  to  the  survival  test.     We  must  judge  good 


24       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

that  which  succeeds.    Unfortunately  for  him,  at  that 
stage  his  whole   theory  becomes  a  barren  tautology. 
Progress  now  in  his  view  results  from  the  survival  ofthe 
fittest,  because  progress  is  the  process  wherein  the  fittest 
survive.     Again  it  is  always  the  fittest  who  survive," 
because  the  fact  of  their  survival  proves  their  fitness.  , 
This  purely  verbal  argument  underlies  a  good  deal  of^^ 
biological  reasoning  and  often  comes  very  near  to  the  * 
surface.  ^ 

But  in  point  of  fact  we  have  very  sufficient  reason  to 
'decline  the  biological  alternative.     The  conceptions  of'^ 
human  happiness,  of  mental  development,  of  social  co-  I 
operation,  which  lie  at  the  root  of  the  idea  of  progress  I 
are   not   meaningless.     They  require,  no    doubt,  any 
amount  of  examination  and  criticism,  and  to  work  out  all 
their  implications  is  the  standing  task  of  social  philoso-    / 
phy.    Just  as  much  may  be  said  of  any  of  the  current 
terms  of  our  common  knowledge.     But  the  first  step 
in  such  an  examination  is  to  put  the  problem  in  its  right 
shape,  and  the  present  problem  is  hopelessly  misstated 
when  a  term  like  ''fit,"  which  suggests  adaptation  to 
some  desirable  end,  is  employed  without  so  much  as  an 
effort  to  determine  what  is  desirable  and  what  is  not. 
Once  again  we  are  brought  back  to  the  conclusion  that 
we  can  carry  on  no  useful  discussion  of  the  relation  of 
evolution  to  progress  unless  we  have  a  clearly  formed 
conception  of  the  standard  of  value  by  which  we  jud^e 
what  progress  is. 

But,  the  biologist  may  rejoin,  you  may  have  your 
standard,  but  it  is  nugatory.  Your  conception  of  the 
goal  of  human  endeavor  may  be  clear  enough,  but  in 
practice  it  may  be  futile.    You  desire  a  society  based  on 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  25 

mutual  forbearance  and  mutual  aid.     But  you  cannot 
get  it.    The  law  of  life  is  internecine  struggle,  and  against 
that  law  you  beat  in  vain.     Well,  let  us  accept  this  test 
and  ask  what  we  actually  find.     What  we  find  is  that 
the  species  which  are  from  our  point  of  view  the  higher, 
that  is,  those  which  exhibit  the  greater  degree  of  indi- 
vidual development  and  social  cooperation,  come  rela- 
tively late  into  existence  in  the  course  of  evolution  and 
tend  to  dominate  the  lower.     Man,  in  whose  develop^ 
ment  those  characteristics  are  the  most  marked,  is  also 
the  dominant  animal  and  civilized  societies  which  carry 
them  farthest   are   dominant   among  mankind.     The? 
^social  type  inherits  the  earth.     It  does  not  defeat  it-j. 
self.     It  succeeds.  ^ 

These  considerations  necessarily  have  had  their  effect 
upon  the  biological  view,  and  the  conception  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  has  been  modified  accordingly. 
It  is  seen  that,  in  dealing  with  social  affairs,  we  cannotV 
take  the  individual  as  an  isolated  unit,  and  the  concep- 
tion of  competition  is  transferred  accordingly  from  the 
'  individual  human  being  to  the  social  group  of  which  he 
-  is  a  member.  For  this  social  group  it  is  recognized  that 
affection  and  sympathy,  and  all  the  forces  that  make 
for  order  and  cooperation,  will  have  what  biologists 
term  ^^  survival  value."  Though  inferior  individuals 
may  be  preserved,  for  example,  by  the  higher  develop- 
ment of  parental  care,  yet,  upon  the  whole,  the  family 
in  which  parental  love  is  strongest  will  have  an  advan- 
tage in  competition  with  other  families.  It  may  contain; 
a  larger  number  of  weak  units,  but,  as  a  whole,  it  wilh 
have  more  solidarity  and  it  will  be  better  organized  for\ 
the  achievement  of  its  ends. 


26       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

As  with  the  family,  so  with  society.  Each  com- 
munity will  lose  something  by  preservation  of  mem- 
bers who  are  ill-equipped,  physically  or  morally,  but 
it  will  gain  more  by  its  acceptance  of  those  higher 
rules  of  social  order  and  justice  which  prevent  the 
stronger  members  from  exercising  their  powers  to  the 
full. 

But  the  gain  in  this  method  of  treating  the  facts  is 
still  looked  on  as  essentially  a  gain  in  competition.  The 
struggle  for  existence  is  now  conceived  as  a  struggle  be- 
tween communities,  and  while  it  is  admitted  that  in  the 
community  there  is  a  certain  suspension  or  mitigation 
of  the  war  of  all  against  all,  it  is  insisted  none  the  less 
that  it  is  still  through  struggle,  still  through  elimination, 
that  progress  takes  place,  only  the  elimination  is  now 
applied  to  communities  as  a  whole;  the  weaker  com- 
munity goes  under,  and  it  is  still  well  that  it  should  go 
under. 

So  reconstituted,  the  theory  affords  justification  for 
what  is  known  in  ethics  as  ^^group-morality."  We  are 
all  famiUar  with  the  fact  that  a  certain  code  may  be 
generally  recognized  as  applicable  to  all  the  members  of 
a  group,  while  outside  that  group  quite  another  code 
comes  into  operation.  The  distinction  of  Greek  and 
Barbarian,  of  Jew  and  Gentile,  of  white  man  and 
colored,  are  familiar  illustrations.  Here,  again,  it  will 
be  seen  that  the  very  modification  of  sentiment  which 
before  the  days  of  biology  was  deemed  to  be  the  highest 
development  of  ethics,  the  change  effected  by  overcom- 
ing these  distinctions  and  forming  a  code  of  universalism 
in  which  there  was  to  be  neither  Jew  nor  Gentile,  bond 
nor  free,  is  regarded  by  the  theory  of  natural  selection  as 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  27 

a  step  to  deterioration.  Let  our  social  principles  be 
developed  as  highly  as  possible  within  the  group,  says 
the  theory  in  its  present  form,  but  only  on  condition  that 
between  the  groups  themselves  no  terms  of  peace  be 
made.  Yet  here,  again,  at  bottom,  our  previous  argu- 
ment is  once  more  applicable.  For  once  again,  if  we 
look  at  history,  if  we  consult  the  ethical  consciousness 
to  tell  us  what  is  higher,  and  if  we  verify  its  deliverance 
by  tracing  the  results  in  the  actual  work  of  civilization, 
we  find  that  the  lowest  stages  of  society  are  those  in 
which  men  are  organized  in  small,  comparatively  iso- 
lated groups ;  and  as  civilization  advances  we  find  pro- 
cesses of  fusion  at  work  whereby  larger  and  better  organ- 
ized communities  are  formed  and  whereth  the  caste  and 
class  distinctions,  which  at  first  preserved  the  group  or- 
ganization, are  more  and  more  broken  down.  Just  as 
in  the  ethics  which  we  deem  highest  we  find  the  barriers 
between  man  and  man  surmounted  in  principle,  so  in 
societies  which  we  conceive  as  most  highly  civilized  we 
find  them  in  greater  degree  actually  broken  down  by  law 
and  custom  and  practice  of  life. 

Furthermore,  the  ideal  of  group-morality,  as  an  ideal, 
is  self-contradictory.  We  cannot  deliberately  and  with 
our  eyes  open  mutilate  ethical  principles  and  preserve 
the  portion  of  them  which  we  wish  to  cherish,  unaffected 
by  that  operation.  We  cannot,  for  example,  refuse  the 
/  "elementary  rights  of  humanity  to  those  who  are  not  of 
our  nation  or  race,  and  yet  retain  the  conception  of 
these  rights  in  all  their  full,  living  vigor  for  use  amongst 
ourselves.  The  obligations  recognized  under  group- 
morality  are  never  so  complete  as  those  which  are 
founded  on  the  conception  of  common  morality.     Nor 


28       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

lastly,  can  we  justify  aggressive  war  and  conquest  as 
methods  of  securing  race-domination,  without  thereby 
laying  our  own  social  structure  open  to  serious  re- 
actions. If  we  are  to  wage  war,  we  must  be  organized 
as  a  military  society.  And  this  remark  is  general. 
Our  own  internal  constitution  is  essentially  correlated 
with  our  behavior  to  other  communities.  We  cannot 
here  escape  the  reaction  of  what  we  may,  if  we  like, 
call  moral  laws  or,  if  we  prefer  it,  sociological  effects. 
We  cannot  maintain  one  Hfe,  as  it  were,  within,  and 
another  without. 

The  conclusion  which  these  reflections  suggest  is 
that  the  uncritical  application  of  biological  principles 
to  social  progress  results  in  an  insuperable  contradic- 
tion. The  factors  which  determine  the  survival  of  phys- 
ical organisms,  if  applied  as  rules  for  the  furtherance  of 
social  progress,  appear  to  conflict  with  all  that  social 
progress  means.  A  sense  of  this  conflict  is  no  doubt 
responsible  for  the  further  reconstruction  which  the 
biological  view  has  in  recent  years  undergone.  Biolo- 
gists now  begin  to  inquire  seriously  whether /^natural" 
selection  may  not  be  replaced  by  a  rational  selection  in 
which  ''fitness  for  survival"  would  at  length  achieve  its 
legitimate  meaning,  and  the  development  of  the  race 
might  be  guided  by  reasoned  conceptions  of  social  value. 
This  is  a  fundamental  change  of  attitude,  and  the  new 
doctrine  of  eugenics  to  which  it  has  given  rise  requires 
careful  examination.  Before  proceeding  to  this  exami- 
nation, however,  it  will  be  well  to  inquire  into  the 
causes  of  the  contrast  on  which  we  have  insisted  be- 
tween biological  evolution  and  social  progress.  ^  Faced 
by  this  contradiction,  we  ask  ourselves  whether  social 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE         29 

development  may  not  be  something  quite  distinct  from    ^ 
the  organic  changes  known  to  biology,  and  whether  the      • 
life  of  society  may  not  depend  upon  forces  which  never  y\\ 
appear  in  the  individual  when  he  is  examined  merely      1 
as  an  individual  or  merely  as  a  member  of  a  race.        '^ 

Take  the  latter  point  first.  It  is  easily  seen  in  the 
arguments  of.  biologists  that  they  conceive  social  prog- 
ress as  consisting  essentially  in  an  improvement  of  the 
stock  to  which  individuals  belong.  This  is  a  way  of 
looking  at  the  matter  intelligible  enough  in  itself.  So- 
ciety consists  of  so  many  thousand  or  so  many  million 
individuals,  and  if,  comparing  any  given  generation  with 
its  ancestors,  we  could  establish  an  average  improve- 
ment in  physical,  mental,  or  moral  faculty,  we  should 
certainly  have  cause  to  rejoice.  There  is  progress  so  far. 
But  there  is  another  point  of  view  which  we  may  take  up. 
Society  consists  of  individual  persons  and  nothing  but  \ 
individual  persons,  just  as  the  body  consists  of  cells  and 
the  product  of  cells.  But  though  the  body  may  consist 
pexclusively  of  cells,  we  should  never  understand  its  life 
by  examining  the  lives  of  each  of  its  cells  as  a  separate  ^ 
unit.  We  must  equally  take  into  account  that  organic 
interconnection  whereby  the  living  processes  of  each 
separate  cell  cooperate  together  to  maintain  the  health 
of  the  organism  which  contains  them  all.  So,  again,  to 
understand  the  social  order  we  have  to  take  into  account, 
not  only  the  individuals  with  their  capabilities  and 
achievements,  but  the  social  organization  in  virtue  of  ■ 
which  these  individuals  act  upon  one  another  and  jointly 
produce  what  we  call  social  results ;  and  whatever  may 
be  true  of  the  physical  organism,  we  can  see  that  in 
society  it  is  possible  that  individuals  of  the  very  same 


30       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

potentialities  may,  with  good  organization,  produce 
good  results,  and,  with  bad  organization,  results  which 
are  greatly  inferior.^ 

The  social  phenomenon,  in  short,  is  not  something 
which  occurs  in  one  individual,  or  'even  in  several  indi- 
viduals taken  severally.  It  is  essentially  an  interaction 
of  individuals,  and  as  the  capabilities  of  any  givenTfidP 
vidua!  are  extraordinarily  various  and  are  only  called 
out,  each  by  appropriate  circumstances,  it  will  be  readily 
seen  that  the  nature  of  the  interaction  may  itself  bring 
forth  new  and  perhaps  unexpected  capacities,  and  elicit 
from  the  individuals  contributing  to  it  forces  which, 
but  for  this  particular  opportunity,  might  possibly  re- 
main forever  dormant.  If  this  is  so,  sociology,  as  a' 
science,  is  not  the  same  thing  as  either  biology  or  psy- 
chology. It  deals  neither  with  the  physical  capacities 
of  individuals  as  such  nor  with  their  psychological  capac- 
ities as  such.  It  deals  rather  with  results  produced  by 
the  play  of  these  forces  upon  one  another,  by  the  inter- 
action of  individuals  under  the  conditions  imposed  by 
their  physical  environment.  The  nature  of  the  forces' 
and  the  point  of  these  distinctions  may  be  made  clear 
by  a  very  simple  instance. 

Let  us  picture  to  ourselves  a  crowd  of  persons  trying 
to  get  through  a  narrow  doorway.  Here  are  a  number 
of  individuals,  each  animated  by  a  common  purpose. 
Let  us  consider  the  forces  at  work.  Obviously,  the  first 
that  we  shall  take  into  account  is  psychological  —  there 

1  It  may  be  said  that  an  improved  organization  must  itself  imply 
improvement  of  average  individual  quality.  But  this  is  not  so. 
It  may  depend,  e.g.,  on  contact  with  a  higher  civilization  or  on  the 
successive  efforts  of  generations  of  a  stock  which  remains  unmodi- 
fied in  its  hereditary  racial  characteristics. 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE         31 

is  the  common  motive  to  get  out  of  the  room  animating 
every  single  component  member  of  the  crowd.  Next 
come  under  consideration  the  biological  elements  — 
the  strength  of  muscle,  the  soundness  of  wind  and  limb 
which  enable  each  man  to  hold  his  place  and  push  along. 
Then  there  are  the  physical  conditions  to  be  taken  into 
account  —  the  shape  of  the  room,  the  width  of  the 
door.  If  the  door  were  wide  enough  there  would  be  no 
pushing;  in  other  words,  certain  material  limitations 
of  the  environment  give  form  to  the  forces  at  work. 
Observe  further  that,  under  the  general  conditions  laid 
down,  the  differences  of  individuals  would  have  full  play. 
One  person  goes  intelligently  in  the  Une  of  least  resist- 
ance ;  another  makes  his  way  through  the  crowd  by  the 
^ infallible  process''  known  to  Mr.  Alfred  Jingle  of  el- 
bowing the  countenances  of  its  component  members; 
a  third  follows  in  the  wake  of  some  one  stronger  than 
himself ;  a  fourth  slips  adroitly  into  every  interstice  that 
presents  itself.  Where  in  all  this  is  the  social  phenome- 
non ?  It  presents  in  this  case  no  very  dignified  spectacle. 
It  is  just  the  boiling,  seething,  surging  crowd  and  the 
process  of  its  emergence  as  a  whole,  draggletailed  and 
crushed  it  may  be,  from  the  scene  of  struggle.  I  ask  you 
to  note  only  that  what  has  happened  is  something  to  be 
described  neither  in  terms  of  the  physical  characteristics 
of  the  room,  nor  of  the  muscular  strength  of  the  individ- 
uals, nor  of  their  psychological  peculiarities,  but  in  terms 
of  the  play  of  all  these  forces  upon  one  another.  The 
movement  of  the  crowd  is  the  result,  not  of  a  number 
of  personal  forces  taken  separately,  but  of  a  number 
of  personal  forces  in  interaction,  and  the  interaction 
modifies  the  personal  forces,  bringing  into  play  efforts 


32       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

which  would  not  be  made  but  for  the  situation  which 
it  creates. 

Now,  in  this  scene  we  had  the  social  phenomenon  at 
its  lowest,  as  we  know  well  from  descriptions  of  what 
occurs  when  such  a  crash  as  I  am  picturing  takes  place 
under  the  influence  of  panic.  But  let  us  consider  how 
the  social  phenomenon  involved  may  be  modified.  Let 
us  substitute  a  slightly  different  image.  Instead  of  the 
crowd  all  animated  by  one  purpose,  anxious  to  pass  in 
one  direction,  let  us  think  of  a  busy  London  crossing. 
Here  we  have  the  same  general  conditions,  with  one 
modification  to  begin  with,  which  makes  the  instance 
more  appropriate  as  an  example  of  social  life  at  large. 
The  people  are  not  all  going  one  way ;  they  are  not  all 
animated  by  one  motive;  all  want  to  get  along,  but 
they  are  going  in  different  directions,  and  the  crowds 
pass  and  repass.  But  what  is  still  more  important  for 
our  purpose,  a  new  element  has  been  introduced.  The 
vehicles  all  keep  on  their  side  of  the  road,  and  at  the 
crossing  there  stands  a  man  in  blue  to  show  who  may 
pass  and  who  may  not.  By  this  simple  means  the 
multitudinous  tumult  of  individual  forces  is  reduced  to  a 
certain  sufficiency  of  order,  and  this,  on  the  one  hand, 
by  the  unquestioning  observance  of  a  certain  very  simple 
custom  and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  the  presence  of  a 
representative  of  the  majesty  of  the  law  —  two  methods 
by  which  in  the  course  of  ages  society  has  solved  for  it- 
self the  problem  of  walking  or  driving  along  the  street 
with  the  minimum  of  mutual  hindrance.  The  two 
methods  are  those  of  custom  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  the 
positive  institution  armed  with  authority  upon  the 
other.    The  orderly  passage  of  the  street  is  thus  effected 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE       "IsS 

by  people  who,  if  placed  under  the  conditions  of  panic 
or,  for  that  matter,  in  a  room  from  which  they  have  to 
make  their  egress  on  the  lines  of  our  first  demonstration, 
would  have  behaved  very  much  in  the  way  described. 
But  if  in  the  struggle  of  the  crowd  to  get  out  of  the  room, 
some  one  man,  with  sufficient  strength  of  voice  or  im- 
pressiveness  of  manner,  should  set  himself  to  impose  a 
little  orderliness,  we  know  how  quickly  a  queue  would  be 
formed,  and  how  the  anarchic  struggle  of  one  minute 
would  give  way  to  a  far  more  rapid  and  orderly  egress  in 
the  next.  We  know  too,  how,  if  the  conditions  were  re- 
peated, the  problem  of  maintaining  order  would  in  each 
successive  instance  become  easier  to  solve. 

Now,  these  instances,  simple  as  they  are,  are  typical 
of  the  life  of  society.     They  illustrate  what  is  meant 
by  the  social  fact  as  distinct  from  the  biological  and  the 
psychological.     They  show  that  in  sociology  what  we^^ 
have  to  deal  with  is  the  results  that  come  about  from  the  j 
interplay  of  motives,  the  behavior  of  men  in  the  mass  as 
they  act  and  react  upon  one  another.     They  show,  sec- 
ondly, how  the  very  nature  of  this  interaction  will  call 
forth  new  forces  previously  latent  in  the  individuals 
concerned  in  the  affair,  and  they  show  how  the  results  so 
arrived  at  are  incorporated  in  institutions.     The  inter- 
play of  human  motives  and  the  interaction  of  human 
"beings  is  the  fundamental  fact  of  social  life,  and  the  per- 
manent results  which  this  interaction  achieves  and  the 
influence  which  it  exercises  upon  the  individuals  who 
take  part  in  it,  constitute^  the  fundamental  fact  of  social 
evolution.     These  results  are  embodied  in  what  may  be        ^ 
called,  generically,  tradition.     So  understood,  tradition,     i^ 
its  growth  and  estabUshment,  its  reaction  upon  the  very 


34       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

individuals  who  contribute  to  building  it  up,  and  its 
modifications  by  subsequent  interactions,  constitutes 
the  main  subject  of  sociological  inquiij.  Tradition  is, 
in  the  development  of  society,  whafft^edjfey  is  in  the 
physical  growth  of  the  stock.  It  is  the  link  between 
past  and  future,  it  is  that  in  which  the  effects  of  the  past 
are  consolidated  and  on  the  basis  of  which  subsequent 
modifications  are  built  up.  We  might  push  the  analogy 
a  little  further,  for  the  ideas  and  customs  which  it  main- 
tains and  furnishes  to  each  new  generation  as  guides  for 
their  behavior  in  life  are  analogous  to  the  determinate 
methods  of  reaction,  the  inherited  impulses,  reflexes, 
and  instincts  with  which  heredity  furnishes  the  indi- 
vidual. The  tradition  of  the  elders  is,  as  it  were,  the 
instinct  of  society.  It  furnishes  the  prescribed  rule  for 
dealing  with  the  ordinary  occasions  of  life,  which  is  for 
the  most  part  accepted  without  inquiry  and  applied 
without  reflection.  It  furnishes  the  appropriate  insti- 
tution for  providing  for  each  class  of  social  needs,  for 
meeting  common  dangers,  for  satisfying  social  wants, 
for  regulating  social  relations.  It  constitutes,  in  short, 
the  framework  of  society's  life  which  to  each  new  genera- 
tion is  a  part  of  its  hereditary  outfit.  But  of  course  in 
speaking  of  tradition  as  a  kind  of  inheritance  we  conceive 
of  it  as  propagated  by  quite  other  than  biological 
methods.  In  a  sense  its  propagation  isj^^^fchs^logical, 
it  is  handed  on  from  mind  to  mind,  and  even  though  so- 
cial institutions  may  in  a  sense  be  actually  incorporated 
in  material  things,  in  buildings,  in  books,  in  coronation 
robes,  or  in  flags,  still  it  need  riot  be  said  that  these  things 
are  nothing  but  for  the  continuity  of  thought  which 
maintains  and  develops  their    significance.     Yet    the 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE         35 

forces  at  work  in  tradition  are  not  purely  psychological ; 
at  least,  they  are  not  to  be  understood  in  terms  of  indi- 
vidual psychology  alone.  What  is  handed  on  is  not 
merely  a  set  of  ideas,  but  the  whole  social  environment ; 
not  merely  certain  ways  of  thinking  or  of  acting,  but  the 
conditions  which  prescribe  to  individuals  the  necessity 
for  thinking  or  acting  in  certain  specific  ways  if  they  are 
to  achieve  their  own  desires.  The  point  is  worth  dwell- 
ing on,  because  some  writers  have  thought  to  simplify 
the  working  of  tradition  by  reducing  it  to  some  ap- 
parently simple  psychological  phenomenon  like  that  of 
imitation.  In  this  there  is  more  than  one  element  of 
fallacy.  To  begin  with,  imitation  itself  is  by  no  means 
a  simple  or  unambiguous  term.  When  we  repeat  what 
another  does,  we  are  not  always  imitating;  when  we 
learn  from  another,  we  are  not  always  imitating.  If  the 
term  is  to  be  used  strictly,  it  appears  to  be  applicable 
to  two  main  cases  of  repetition.  In  the  simplest  case, 
imitation  appears  as  a  kind  of  mechanical  suggestion. 
Such,  for  example,  is  the  case  of  contagious  laughter  or 
yawning ;  such  is  the  case  quoted  by  some  psychologists 
of  the  smile  of  the  mother  mirrored  almost  automati- 
cally, as  it  would  seem,  on  the  face  of  the  baby.  Psy- 
chological contagion  of  this  kind  has  its  own  sphere  and 
its  own  importance  in  the  life  of  society.  It  has  its 
effect  in  the  psychology  of  crowds  and  it  has  much  to  do 
with  the  more  superficial  movements  of  fashion.  At  a 
higher  remove  it  becomes  the  desire  to  be  as  others  are 
and  do  as  others  do,  —  a  factor  of  course  to  be  reckoned 
with,  —  along  with  which  may  be  ranked  the  comple- 
mentary impulse;,  to  be  what  others  are  not,  to  differen- 
tiate oneself  from  the  crowd. 


36       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

These  are  the  two  types  of  imitation  proper,  the  con- 
scious and  the  unconscious,  and  both  of  them  have  an 
influence  with  which  sociology  has  to  reckon,  but  they 
are  very  far  from  exhausting  the  sphere  of  tradition. 
From  any  such  imitative  propagation  of  an  idea  or 
habit  we  must  distinguish,  as  resting  upon  quite  differ- 
ent psychological  conditions,  the  propagation  of  ideas 
by  teaching,  by  demonstration,  and  even  by  the  appeal 
to  the  feelings  and  passions.  The  ultimate  result  may 
still  in  a  sense  be  the  same,  —  that  is  to  say,  the  idea 
which  is  possessed  by  A  passes  into  the  mind  of  B,  — 
but  the  method  by  which  it  is  imparted  and  therefore 
the  conditions  under  which  it  will  spread  from  mind  to 
mind  are  as  different  as  need  be.  A  much  more  com- 
plex psychology  comes  into  play.  No  longer  the  simple 
desire  of  B  to  be  like  A,  but  the  whole  mental,  and  per- 
haps the  whole  social  and  physical,  situation  will  have 
to  be  taken  into  account.  B  will  accept  the  idea  in 
so  far  as  it  will  fit  in  with  his  mental  predisposition, 
it  may  be  with  his  feelings,  it  may  be  with  his  concep- 
tions of  logic,  it  may  be  with  the  requirements  of  the 
environment  in  which  he  finds  himself.  And  finally, 
from  all  cases  of  the  multiplication  of  an  idea  or  a 
mode  of  action  by  passage  from  mind  to  mind,  we  must 
distinguish  the  multitudinous  cases  in  which  the  same 
idea  or  the  same  mode  of  action  is  repeated  over  and 
over  again,  not  because  it  is  propagated  from  mind 
to  mind,  but  because  each  individual  mind  finds  itself 
similarly  circumstanced.  All  the  farmers  in  a  country- 
side may  be  plowing  their  fields  in  the  same  week,  not 
because  they  are  imitating  one  another  or  are  persuad- 
ing one  another,  but  because  the  requirements  of  their 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE         37 

land  are  alike  and  the  season  is  the  same  for  all.  And 
here,  in  the  case  of  social  institutions,  we  touch  upon 
a  factor  which  takes  us  outside  the  region  of  pure 
psychology,  for  what  persists  in  social  life  is  not 
merely  the  ideas  which  pass  from  mind  to  mind,  but 
the  whole  fabric  of  society  into  which  each  man  finds 
himself  born  and  which  in  large  measure  determines 
the  circumstances  of  his  life,  and  the  methods  by  which 
alone  he  can  make  his  way  in  the  world.  To  pursue 
the  case  of  the  farmer,  for  example,  he  plows  his  land, 
not  merely  in  imitation  of  his  father,  but  because  by 
certain  laws  of  inheritance  the  land  has  become  his  in 
virtue  of  his  sonship,  and  to  work  it  is  just  the  method 
which  the  social  fabric  provides  for  him  to  obtain  his 
living.  In  other  words,  tradition  not  merely  supplies 
him  with  certain  ideas  of  what  he  may  do,  but  fixes 
him  in  a  position  in  which  it  is  open  to  him  to  do  certain 
things  and  not  others.  ~ 

Now,  the  growth  of  tradition  will  in  a  sense  gravely 
modify  the  individual  members  of  the  society  which 
maintains  it.  To  any  given  set  of  institutions  a  cer- 
tain assemblage  of  qualities,  mental  and  physical,  will 
be  most  appropriate,  and  these  may  differ  as  much  as 
the  qualities  necessary  for  war  differ  from  those  of 
peaceful  industry.  Any  tradition  will  obviously  call 
forth  from  human  beings  the  qualities  appropriate  to 
it,  and  it  will  in  a  sense  select  the  individuals  in  which 
those  qualities  are  the  best  developed  and  will  tend  to 
bring  them  to  the  top  of  the  social  fabric,  but  this  is 
not  to  say  that  it  will  assert  the  same  modification  upon 
the  stock  that  would  be  accomplished  by  the  working 
of  heredity.    The  hereditary  qualities  of  the  race  may 


38       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

remain  the  same,  though  the  traditions  have  changed 
and  though  by  them  one  set  of  quahties  are  kept  per- 
manently in  abeyance,  while  the  other  are  continually 
brought  by  exercise  to  the  highest  point  of  efficiency. 
According  to  the  prevailing  views  of  heredity,  no  amount 
of  such  exercise,  however  long  repeated,  would  affect 
those  innate  characteristics  of  the  stock  which  are 
handed  on  from  parent  to  child,  and  thus  it  is  conceiv- 
able that  we  might  find  very  great  social  advances  in 
any  given  direction  without  any  modification  of  the  in- 
herited characteristics  of  the  race.  We  are  not  to  con- 
clude that  physical  heredity  is  of  no  importance  to  the 
social  order;  it  must  be  obvious  that  the  better  the 
qualities  of  the  individuals  constituting  a  race,  the 
more  easily  they  will  fit  themselves  into  good  social 
traditions,  the  more  readily  they  will  advance  those 
jiraditions  to  a  still  higher  point  of  excellence,  and 
^the  more  stoutly  they  would  resist  deterioration.  The 
qualities  upon  which  the  social  fabric  calls  must  be 
there,  and  the  more  readily  they  are  forthcoming  the 
more  easily  the  social  machine  will  work.  Hence  so- 
cial progress  necessarily  implies  a  certain  level  of  racial 
development,  and  its  advance  may  always  be  checked 
by  the  limitations  of  the  racial  type.  Nevertheless,  if| 
we  look  at  human  history  as  a  whole,  we  are  impressed! 
with  the  stability  of  the  great  fundamental  character- f 
istics  of  human  nature  and  the  relatively  sweepingj 
character  and  often  rapid  development  of  social  change^] 
In  view  of  this  contrast  we  must  hesitate  to  attribute 
any  substantial  share  in  human  development  to  biologi- 
cal factors,  and  our  hesitation  is  increased  when  we 
consider  the  factors  on  which  social  change  depends. 


PROGRESS  AND  STRUGGLE  FOR  EXISTENCE  39 

It  is  in  the  department  of  knowledge  and  industry  that 
advance  is  most  rapid  and  certain,  and  the  reason  is 
perfectly  clear.  It  is  that  on  this  side  each  generation 
can  build  on  the  work  of  its  predecessors.  A  man  of 
very  moderate  mathematical  capacity  to-day  can  solve 
problems  which  puzzled  Newton,  because  he  has  avail- 
able the  work  of  Newton  and  of  many  another 
since  Newton's  time.  In  the  department  of  ethics 
the  case  is  different.  Each  man's  character  has  to  be 
formed  anew,  and  though  teaching  goes  for  much,  it 
is  not  everything.  The  individual  in  the  end  works 
out  his  own  salvation.^^,  where  there  is  true  ethical 
progress  is  in  the  advance  of  ethical  conceptions  and 
principles  which  can  be  handed  on ;  of  Ig^s  and  institu- 
tions which  can  be  built  up,  maintained,  arid  improved. 
That  is  to  say,  there  is  progress  just  where  the  factor 
of  social  tradition  comes  into  play  and  just  so  far  as  its 
influence  extends.  If  the  tradition  is  broken,  the  race' 
begins  again  where  it  stood  before  the  tradition  was 
formed.  We' may  infer  that  while  the  race  has  been 
relatively^  stagnant,,  society  has  rapidly  developed, 
and  we  must  conclude  that,  whether  for  good  or  for 
evil,  social  chapges  are  mainly  determined,  not  by  alter- 
ations of  racial  type,  but  by  modifications  of  tradition  I 
due  to  the  interactions  of  social  causes.  Progress  is  ) 
not  racial,  but  social.  •  ^ 


CHAPTER  III 

The  Value  and  Limitations  of  Eugenics 

We  have  seen  that  social  Ufe  consists  in  the  inter- 
action of  human  beings,  and  social  evolution  —  whether 
progressive  or  the  reverse  —  in  the  consequent  forma- 
tion and  modification  of  what,  for  lack  of  a  better 
single  word,  we  may  call  the  social  tradition.  Social 
improvement  therefore  is  not  the  same  as  racial  improve- 
ment. It  is  quite  conceivable  that  with  no  change 
in  the  average  level  of  racial  capacity,  the  cumulative 
efforts  of  generations  to  better  their  life  might  produce 
a  very  great  change  in  the  social  structure,  and  in  point 
of  fact  it  appears  to  be  mainly  by  such  a  process  of  the 
summation  of  effort  that  the  actual  achievements  of 
mankind  have  been  effected.  But  at  this  point  the 
biological  critic  may  very  fairly  break  in  with  a  new 
criticism.  ^^ Granted,'^  he  may  say,  ^^all  that  you  urge 
on  behalf  of  the  social  tradition.  It  still  remains 
the  incontestable  truth  that  society  is  composed  of 
individuals  whose  qualities  determine  the  nature  of 
their  interactions.  No  doubt  these  qualities  are  very 
complex.  Man  is  a  being  of  mixed  disposition.  There 
is  a  mingling  of  gold  and  brass  in  every  soul,  and  circum- 
stances may  decide  which  is  to  show  on  the  surface. 
We  grant  then  that  there  are  wide  limits  of  variation 
within  which,  without  modification  of  the  racial  type, 
society  may  advance  or  retrograde.     None  the  less  we 

40 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        41 

come  back  to  the  qualities  of  individuals  as  the  ultimate 
determinants.  Their  average  merit  must  affect  the 
standard  of  social  action.  Conceive  the  racial  level  — 
by  which  we  mean  the  average  level  of  hereditary  en- 
dowment —  raised,  and  to  that  extent  you  facilitate 
social  progress.  Conceive  it  lowered,  and  to  that  ex- 
tent you  arrest  progress  and  favor  deterioration." 
The  contention  thus  modestly  put  cannot  be  denied. 
The  very  efforts  that  men  make  to  improve  their  in- 
dividual condition  and  the  social  order  are  themselves 
of  course  the  outcome  of  their  qualities ;  and  if  these 
qualities  take  shape  and  find  expression  in  the  medium 
of  the  social  tradition,  it  is  equally  true  that  they  form 
the  ultimate  reserve  of  energy  underlying  the  social 
changes  by  which  that  tradition  is  maintained,  im- 
proved, or  destroyed  ^^Very  well  then,"  the  Eugenist 
proceeds,  ^4t  is  admitted  that  the  quality  of  the  stock 
is  of  high  importance.  It  is  admitted  also  that  natural 
selection  is  no  longer  capable  of  performing  its  function 
in  weeding  out  inferior  stocks.  It  is  admitted  that  we 
cannot  revert  to  the  use  of  natural  selection  without 
destroying  the  characteristic  work  of  civilization.  We 
cannot  undo  the  structure  of  mutual  aid  and  mutual 
forbearance  which  civilized  progress  has  painfully  built 
up.  What  we  can  do  is  to  si i bpt i f 1 1 f .p  for  natural  ai 
.rational  selection^^  We  may  discourage  and  even  pre- 
vent the  perpetuation  of  inferior  stocks,  and  for  this 
purpose  a  rational  conception  of  fitness  and  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  laws  of  heredity  is  all  that  we  require.  All 
that  has  been  urged  above  against  the  conception  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  may  be  true.  It  holds  true  none 
the  less  that  selection  is  necessary  to  racial  progress  and 


42       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

to  the  avoidance  of  racial  deterioration,  and  even  if 
the  social  reformer  could  ignore  the  need  of  improve- 
ment in  the  race,  he  must  take  a  very  serious  view  of 
the  possibihties  involved  in  deterioration.  He  must 
look  very  carefully  at  the  reforms  which  he  is  proposing, 
for  fear  any  such  vital  injury  to  the  life-blood  of  society 
should  be  entailed  by  them/^ 

Without  examining  all  the  details  of  this  argument, 
we  may  admit  the  main  contention  to  be  theoretically 
sound.  The  improvement  of  the  stock  by  rational  se- 
lection is  in  the  abstract  a  clearly  legitimate  object. 
It  involves  no  such  contradiction  with  the  inherent 
trend  of  progress  as  is  contained  in  the  principle  of 
leaving  society  to  the  operation  of  the  unchecked 
struggle  for  existence.  The  child  once  born  has  a  claim 
upon  society  which  can  only  be  ignored  at  the  cost  of 
abandoning  the  basic  principles  of  the  himaanized  social 
order.  But  the  claim  to  bring  children  into  the  world 
is  quite  another  matter.  It  is  no  novel  point  of  ethics 
^^  ^  to  forbid  parentage  to  a  person  of  deeply  vitiated  stock, 
and  Eugenists  who  draw  a  distinction  between  the  right 
to  live  and  the  right  to  bring  to  life  are  within  their 
rightsS*^  So  far  then  we  admit  that  the  eugenic  con- 
clusion follows  from  its  premises.  But  what  are  the 
premises  ?  We  are  to  assume,  first,  that  we  have  a  true 
conception  of  social  worth,  of  the  nature  of  human 
progress  and  of  the  qualities  making  for  it.  We  are 
to  assume,  secondly,  that  we  have  competent  knowledge 
of  the  laws  of  inheritance  whereby  we  can  so  play  upon 
the  race  as  to  engender  the  qualities  that  we  desire. 
This  is,  to  succeed  in  eugenics  we  need  a  competent 
understanding  both  of  the  eu  and  of  the  genics.     We 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       43 

must  know  what  we  want  to  breed  for  and  how  we'"* 
propose  to  breed  for  it.     Have  we  the  clearness  of  con- 
ception as  to  the  first  point  and  the  fullness  of  knowl- 
edge as  to  the  second    which   are    necessary  to  the 
useful  development  of  eugenics  ? 

As  to  the  first  question,  the  nature  and  criterion  of 
social  worth,  I  think  we  may  trace  two  lines  of  thought 
among  eugenic  writers  which  it  is  highly  important  to 
distinguish.  The  more  careful  admit  that  for  a 
thoroughgoing  application  of  their  principle  we  should 
need  a  well-grounded  social  philosophy.  They  admit 
that  little  is  known  as  to  the  causation  of  many  of 
the. higher  human  qualities  and  fully  grant  that  we 
should  be  very  careful  in,  so  as  to  say,  passing  sentence 
of  execution  on  a  stock  which  may  after  all  contain 
serviceable  elements  mixed  with  its  blemishes.  But 
they  say  there  are  many  qualities  about  which  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  We  do  not  want  insanity:  we  do 
not  want  f  eeble-mindedness ;  we  do  not  want  alcoholism ; 
we  do  not  want  syphilis j_^  we  do  not  want  the  stocks 
which  are  infected  with  such  taint.  We  want  to  ex- 
tinguish them  as  evil  in  themselves  and  as  liable  to 
infect  sound  stocks.  We  want  to  isolate  those  definitely 
infected  much  as  we  isolate  an  infectious  disease.  We 
want  to  prevent  them  from  bringing  into  the  world 
children  in  their  own  image.  When  the  principle  is 
admitted  and  the  experiment  has  been  made  in  these 
cases  that  are  clear,  it  will  be  time  enough  to  consider 
those  that  are  more  doubtful.  We  shall  in  the  mean- 
time have  gained  some  knowledge  of  what  can  be 
done  by  these  means  and  how  it  can  be  done  with  the 
least  possible  infliction  of  suffering. 


44       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

On  this  side  we  see  the  eugenic  case  at  its  strongest. 
But  even  here  we  must  put  in  one  caveat.  There  may 
be  blemishes  which  are  very  serious  in  themselves,  but 
which  nevertheless  do  not  afford  adequate  grounds  for 
pronouncing  capital  sentence  upon  a  stock.  As  an 
illustration,  I  will  take  the  case  of  tuberculosis.  The 
heredity  of  this  disease  is  still  a  matter  of  some  question. 
For  the  sake  of  argument  I  will  assume  the  diathesis 
to  be  hereditary.  No  one  can  deny  that  it  is  in  that 
case  a  serious  blemish.  But  before  we  proceeded  to 
pass  sentence  of  exclusion  from  the  rights  of  parenthood 
on  any  individual  of  tubercular  stock,  I  think  we  should 
have  very  carefully  to  weigh  two  questions.  The  first 
is,  what  are  the  other  qualities  of  the  individual? 
Liability  to  tubercular  infection  involves  no  mental 
or  moral  turpitude.  It  may  coexist  with  the  highest 
qualities  on  this  side.  I  am  not  aware  that  it  even 
involves  any  other  form  of  physical  weakness,  though 
some  other  forms  of  physical  weakness  may  no  doubt 
increase  the  liability  to  tubercular  infection.  Now, 
if  we  stamp  out  the  tubercular  tendency,  what  other 
qualities  are  we  stamping  out  along  with  it?  If  an 
otherwise  gifted  stock  has  this  blemish,  will  there  be 
net  loss  or  net  gain  in  its  disappearance  ?  I  do  not  think 
that  this  question  can  be  answered  offhand.  But 
if  our  general  view  of  progress  is  correct,  society  has 
on  the  whole  gone  forward  by  the  development  of  those 
arts  which  assist  to  keep  alive  many  who  without 
such  aid  would  have  perished;  and  considering  the 
very  wide  prevalence  which  is  now  believed  to  obtain 
of  some  form  or  another  of  the  tubercular  condition,  it 
may  be  doubted,  whether  if  the  tubercle  had  been  left  to 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       45 

do  its  work  unchecked,  there  would  have  been  any  social 
progress  at  all.  Secondly,  it  is  well  within  the  bounds 
of  possibiUty  that,  by  the  development  of  scientific 
hygiene,  instead  of  eliminating  the  tubercular  stock 
we  may  succeed  in  eliminating  the  tubercle.  In  that 
case  this  particular  tendency  —  unless  provably  corre- 
lated with  some  other  form  of  irremediable  weakness  — 
will  no  longer  rank  as  a  defect.  If  in  the  meantime  we 
had  prohibited  the  marriage  of  members  of  such  stocks, 
we  should  have  lost  all  that  they  might  have  contrib- 
uted to  the  population  and  its  well-being  for  the  sake 
of  no  permanent  gain. 

These  two  points  may  be  stated  generally.  We 
must  be  certain  that  the  stock  which  we  seek  to  elimi- 
nate is  so  vicious  that  its  removal  is  a  net  gain.  We 
must  be  sure  that  the  vice  is  irremovable  and  not  de- 
pendent upon  conditions  which  it  is  within  our  power 
to  modify.  This  latter  condition  implies  a  certainty 
as  to  the  operation  of  heredity,  of  which  more  will 
be  said.  But  meanwhile,  assuming  those  two  conditions 
fulfilled,  there  is  a  case  for  forbidding  parentage  —  al- 
ways upon  this  further  provision  that  in  so  doing  we 
do  not  allow  ourselves  to^e  driven  to  methods  which  by 
violating  the  painfully  acquired  traditions  of  civilization 
will  aid  the  ever  present  tendencies  to  re-barbarizatiom] 
On  these  grounds  the  case  of  the  feeble-minded  be- 
comes perhaps  the  strongest  for  the  application  of 
eugenic  methods.  We  have  here  a  type  which  it  is 
becoming  possible  to  identify  with  fair  precision.  It 
is  found  in  men  and  women  who  are  not  capable  of 
independent  existence,  but  who  continually  drift  to 
the  gaol  or  the  workhouse,  who  are  fertile,  and  whose 


46       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

condition  is  asserted  to  be  hereditary  in  a  marked 
degree.  On  grounds  of  humanity  we  have  good  reason 
to  undertake  the  care  of  this  class,  and  we  have  a 
right  to  demand  in  return  the  separation  of  the  sexes. 
We  are  deaUng  with  people  who  are  not  capable  of 
guiding  their  own  Uves  and  who  should  for  their  own 
sake  be  under  tutelage,  and  we  are  entitled  to  impose 
our  own  conditions  of  this  tutelage,  having  the  general 
welfare  of  society  in  view.  Lastly,  there  is  no  reason 
to  think  that  this  condition  is  an  isolated  and,  as  it 
were,  accidental  defect  in  a  nature  that  is  otherwise 
healthy  and  sound.  The  evidence,  I  understand,  is. 
rather  that  it  is  a  form  of  general  deterioration  not 
correlated  with  any  gpeqially  gaod  qualities  by  way  oi 
compensation.^  Such  a  case  is,  I  think,  one  of  the 
strongest  that  Eugenists  can  press  in  the  present  state 
of  our  knowledge. 

On  such  lines  as  these,  physiological  or  medical 
lines  as  we  may  call  them,  eugenics  may  have  a  part  to 
play  in  relation  to  the  social  problem.  But  meanwhile 
there  is  a  second  line  of  thought  discernible  among 
Eugenists  and  larger  claims  put  forward  bearing  on 
poUtical  thought  as  a  whole  which  must  be  very  care- 
fully scrutinized.  By  no  means  all  eugenic  writers  are 
so  careful  in  their  application  of  the  tests  of  unfitness  as 
those  to  whom  I  have  referred.  To  read  a  good  deal 
of  what  is  written  on  this  subject  one  might  suppose 
that  the  whole  question  is  as  simple  as  daylight.  Often 
it  would  seem  as  if  the  actual  position  of  classes  in 
society  was  taken  as  a  measure  of  their  worth.  Thus 
we  hear  a  great  deal  of  the  relative  sterility  of  the  richer 
classes  and  the  fertility  of  the  poorer,  as  if  this  were  in 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       47 

itself  sufficient  evidence  of  the  multiplication  of  the 
unfit.  Now,  the  actual  forces  which  determine  a  man's 
position  in  modern  society  are,  first,  the  inheritance  of 
property  and  other  social  privileges,  and  secondly,  his 
capacity  for  making  and  keeping  money.  The  first 
of  these,  far  from  affording  a  test  of  personal  merit, 
tends  to  mask  the  actual  inequalities  of  endowment. 
One  knows  people  of  the  essential  pauper  character  in 
all  classes.  But  whereas  if  they  are  born  among  the 
well-to-do  they  exist  on  means  of  their  own  or  find  re- 
lations on  whom  they  succeed  in  fastening,  among  the 
poor  they  drift  to  the  street  corner,  the  casual  ward, 
the  workhouse,  and  the  gaol.  One  would  suppose  it 
axiomatic  that  without  perfect  equality  of  opportunity 
actual  position  in  the  social  scale  would  be  no  criterion 
of  relative  merit ;  and  yet  we  find  at  least  one  able 
writer  so  enamoured  of  the  qualities  of  the  British  upper 
and  middle  class  that  he  manages  on  eugenic  grounds  to 
find  reasons  for  the  maintenance  of  class  distinctions. 
But  further,  given  a  genuine  freedom  of  competition 
and  full  equality  of  opportunity,  the  qualities  which 
bring  men  to  the  top  are  not  necessarily  social  qualities. 
Some  qualities  by  which  men  get  on  are  good,  some  in- 
different, and  some  bad.  Which  of  these  will  predomi- 
nate depends  on  the  character  of  the  social  organization. 
The  financial  abilities  which  bring  men  to  the  top  to-day 
may  come  to  be  regarded  by  our  descendants  much  as 
we  regard  the  qualities  of  a  robber  baron  who  prospered 
under  mediaeval  conditions.  Upon  the  whole  it  is 
probable  that  the  harder  and  more  self-regarding  qual- 
ities still  play  a  larger  part  than  the  gentler  and  more 
social  in  determining  success,  and  we  are  not  surprised 


48       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

when  we  find  writers  of  the  type  to  which  I  refer  tell- 
ing us  plainly  that  self-reliance  and  endurance  are  the 
qualities  which  they  wish  to  breed.  Now,  self-reliance 
and  endurance  are  very  good  qualities,  and  we  must 
not  depreciate  them,  but  a  view  of  human  nature  which 
centers  on  these  to  the  omission  of  the  other  side  of 
character  is  a  view  which  has  got  out  of  focus.  The 
possibility  of  such  a  view  indicates  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a  social  philosophy  as  a  basis  of  eugenics  the 
moment  that  eugenic  considerations  are  used  to  deter- 
mine the  main  lines  of  social  reform. 

In  fact,  when  they  begin  to  criticize  social  reform,  some 
Eugenists  of  the  class  to  which  I  am  referring,  political 
Eugenists  as  we  may  call  them,  come  perilously  near 
to  the  old  arguments  from  the  theory  of  natural  selec- 
tion. They  make  reservations,  it  is  true,  which  must 
stand  to  their  credit.  They  admit  that  the  social  con- 
science is  an  indispensable  factor  in  progress,  and  that 
what  has  been  done  in  the  way  of  ameliorative  legisla- 
tion cannot  be  undone.  But,  they  argue,  as  long  as 
natural  selection  reigned  the  standard  of  the  stock 
was  kept  up.  The  weakling  was  eliminated ;  the 
strong  survived.  Now  natural  selection  is  superseded. 
The  weakling  is  preserved.  He  is  allowed  to  breed. 
Relatively  he  is  more  fertile  than  the  fit.  The  birth- 
rate diminishes  most  among  the  higher  ranks  of  society. 
More  and  more  the  nation  of  the  future  will  be  recruited 
from  the  unfit  stocks.  Meanwhile  the  burden  of  main- 
taining the  unfit  falls  in  the  shape  of  poor  rates  and 
state  taxes  on  the  shoulders  of  their  betters,  who  are 
thus  positively  handicapped  in  the  struggle  and  dis- 
inclined to  rear  famiUes.    All  social  legislation  is  directed 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       49 

to  the  improvement  of  the  environment,  but  the  im- 
provement of  the  environment  has  no  effect  on  the  stock. 
It  may  in  some  degree  —  Professor  Pearson's  school 
argues  that  it  is  in  a  very  sUght  degree  —  improve  the 
quaUties  of  the  individual,  but  the  quahties  so  acquired 
will  not  be  handed  on.  Unless  we  so  alter  our  institu- 
tions as  to  encourage  the  propagation  of  the  fit  and  dis- 
courage the  unfit,  our  race  is  doomed. 

(1)  If  these  jeremiads  were  well  founded,  we  should^ 
expect  to  see  the  signs  of  deterioration  already  mani- 
fest. After  all,  the  suspension  of  natural  selection  is  no 
new  phenomenon.  It  has,  as  we  have  shown,  been  in 
progress  ever  since  civilization  began  and  even  before 
civilization  began.  True,  with  the  decline  of  the  in- 
fantile death  rate  it  has  been  carried  much  farther,  but 
this  is  only  the  continuance  of  a  very  old  process,  and 
that  this  process  can  ever  go  so  far  as  entirely  to  elimi- 
nate natural  selection  is  unlikely.  Variations  which  are 
sufficiently  extreme  are  likely  always  to  carry  early 
death  or  infertility  as  their  effect.  In  our  own  times 
what  proof  is  there  of  actual  deterioration?  As  it 
happens  a  committee  was  instituted  in  my  own  country 
to  investigate  this  question  some  six  years  ago.  There 
was  at  that  time  a  widespread  uneasiness  arising  from 
the  increasing  number  of  recruits  who  were  rejected 
on  medical  grounds.  Physical  deterioration  was  the 
thing  most  feared,  and  it  was  reasonable  to  suppose 
that  under  modern  considerations  it  would  be  on  this 
side  if  anywhere  that  deterioration  would  be  apparent. 
The  committee  was  not  biased  in  favor  of  any  op- 
timistic view,  and  all  available  evidence  in  favor  of 
deterioration    came    before    them.     The    result    was 


50       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

that  while  they  found  that  there  was  no  sufficient  ma- 
terial as  at  present  available  to  warrant  any  definite  con- 
clusions on  the  question  of  the  physique  of  the  people  by 
comparison  with  data  obtained  in  past  times,  yet  'Hhe 
impressions  gathered  from  the  great  majority  of  the  wit- 
nesses examined  do  not  support  the  belief  that  there  is 
any  general  progressive  physical  deterioration."  Famil- 
iar social  statistics  support  the  negative  view.  The 
heavy  decline  of  the  death-rate  during  the  last  forty 
years  is  undoubtedly  due  to  improved  sanitary  and  social 
conditions,  but  it  also  indicates  an  improvement  of 
general  health,  and  if  there  were  any  strong  tendency 
to  the  deterioration  of  the  stock  at  work,  we  should  ex- 
pect it  to  appear  as  at  least  a  counterpoise.  The  decline 
of  pauperism  from  about  50  per  thousand  of  the  popula- 
tion in  1850  to  21  per  thousand  in  the  present  year  is 
also  due  to  general  social  progress ;  but  it  has  gone  on 
long  enough  to  be  seriously  counteracted  by  the  growth 
of  a  class  of  hereditary  paupers,  supposing  that  such 
a  class  were  in  fact  increasing.  Of  the  diminution 
of  crime  in  proportion  to  the  population  —  which, 
notwithstanding  a  recent  rise,  marks  the  period  as 
a  whole  —  the  same  may  be  said.  Lastly,  the  rise  in 
real  wages,  which  is  slow  but  general  in  England  and 
is  spread  over  a  century,  tells  the  same  tale.  Wages 
have  risen  owing  to  a  variety  of  social  efforts,  but  the 
higher  wage  could  hardly  in  the  competition  of  the 
world's  market  be  earned  by  a  continuously  deteriorat- 
ing population  of  workers.  The  only  unfavorable  com- 
parison of  any  weight  that  can  be  instituted  with  the 
past  is  in  the  matter  of  insanity,  and  here  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  figures  is  subject  to  serious  doubt. 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        51 

There  is,  says  the  committee,  in  the  report  which  I 
have  quoted,  no  doubt  as  to  the  great  increase  of  insane 
persons  under  treatment,  but  the  question  is,  first,  how- 
far  these  figures  indicate  true  increase  of  insanity,  and 
secondly,  if  this  is  true,  as  to  the  causes  of  the  increase. 
J3n  the  first  point  they  rely  chiefly  on  the  evidence  of 
Dr.  Wiglesworth,  who,  they  say,  admitted  that  the  sta- 
tistical information  was  incomplete,  and  that  the  con- 
clusions to  be  drawn  from  it  varied  according  as  it  was 
read  and  looked  at,  but  on  the  whole,  though  he  would 
like  to  express  himself  with  reserve,  was  inclined  to 
think  that  the  incidence  was  increasing.  You  see  how 
cautiously  the  opinion  as  to  the  last  fact  is  expressed. 
When  we  come  to  the  interpretation,  we  find  Dr.  Wig- 
lesworth equally  cautious  as  to  the  argument  that  the 
increase  of  lunacy  can  be  taken  as  evidence  of  physi- 
cal deterioration.  So  far  as  England  is  concerned  it 
appears  to  be  connected  with  density  of  population, 
and  therefore,  if  it  is  real,  to  be  rather  an  effect  of  the 
worst  side  of  the  social  environment  —  the  crush  and 
the  strain  of  industrial  life  —  than  of  deterioration  of '^ 
stock.^  Upon  the  whole  we  are  justified  in  the  con- 
clusion that  whatever  the  future  has  in  store  the  process 
of  deterioration  has  not  begun. 

(2)  In  the  absence  of  inductive  evidence  of  race 
deterioration,  we  may  usefully  go  on  to  inquire  whether 
there  is  any  reason  in  the  nature  of  the  case  why  the 
suspension  of  natural  selection  within  the  limits  up 
to  which  such  suspension  is  possible    should    lower 

1  There  is  in  fact  more  evidence  of  the  increase  of  lunacy  in  Ire- 
land, which  has  for  historical  reasons  failed  in  large  measure  to  share 
in  such  social  progress  as  the  larger  island  has  achieved. 


52       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

the  racial  standard.  To  many  biologists  the  question 
refutes  itself.  The  race  is  forever  varying,  but  its  varia- 
tions for  the  worse  are  nipped  in  the  bud.  Once  allow 
them  to  grow  and  they  must  infect  the  sounder  stocks. 
At  a  minimum  they  must  lower  the  racial  average, 
and  this  process  of  deterioration  will  go  on  indefinitely. 
It  is  by  means  of  the  selection  of  small  variations  for 
the  better  that  the  racial  standard  is  improved  and  that 
new  varieties  and  new  species  are  formed.  Similarly, 
by  the  indefinitely  continued  propagation  of  variations 
for  the  worse,  the  whole  standard  of  a  race  will  be 
lowered.  This  large  way  of  looking  at  the  facts,  how- 
ever, implies  a  biological  theory  which  is  by  no  means 
universally  accepted.  How  far  a  race  is  actually 
capable  of  being  modified  by  the  accumulation  of  small 
variations  has  become  in  recent  years  a  matter  of  acute 
controversy,  and  it  seems  to  be  the  better  opinion  that 
a  distinction  must  be  drawn  between  the  less  important 
variations  known  as  fluctuations  and  the  more  deep- 
seated  changes  to  which  the  name  of  mutations  has  been 
given.  It  is  probable  that  in  the  case  of  smaller  fluc- 
tuations there  is  a  constant  tendency  to  return  to  the 
mean  or  standard  of  the  race,  and  if  we  can  imagine  a 
race  wholly  immune  from  natural  selection  and  not 
striking  out  any  new  line  by  a  definite  mutation,  the 
mean  standard  of  the  racial  type  would  be  roughly 
maintained  for  an  indefinite  period.  But  be  that  as 
it  may,  we  have  to  point  out  once  more  that  the  view 
taken  of  the  effect  of  natural  selection  is  one-sided, 
for  once  again  it  is  assumed  that  it  is  only  the  unfit 
/who  are  eliminated.  Now  if  once  for  all  we  get  rid  of 
the  phrase  '^ selection  of  the  fit"  and  substitute  for  it 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       53 

*' elimination  of  the  unsuccessful/^  which  is  what  is  really 
meant,  we  shall  see  the  facts  in  a  different  light.  In  a 
race  subject  to  a  severe  struggle  for  existence,  the  types 
which  are  unsuccessful  under  the  prevailing  conditions 
will  constantly  be  eliminated ;  but  it  is  possible  and  more 
than  possible  that  these  types  should  include  among 
them  the  most  valuable  stocks  for  the  purposes  of 
society.  Where  the  conditions  of  life  are  hard,  where 
there  is  little  regard  for  justice  and  mercy,  and  in  a  word 
for  all  the  higher  ethical  qualities,  those  who  possess 
these  qualities  have  less  chance  of  prospering  and 
leaving  descendants  behind  them.  In  point  of  fact 
in  earlier  forms  of  human  society  there  is  good  reason 
to  think  that  social  progress  was  seriously  interfered 
with  by  the  actual  elimination  of  the  best  types. 
From  this  point  of  view  political  and  civil  liberty, 
social  and  economic  justice,  are  the  most  eugenic  of 
agencies.  Much  is  said  by  Eugenists  of  the  decay  of 
nations  in  the  past  by  the  failure  of  the  best  types  to 
perpetuate  themselves.  I  know  of  no  case,  not  even 
that  of  the  Roman  Empire,  in  which  this  suggestion 
is  susceptible  of  any  clear  historical  proof,  for  the 
lamentations  over  the  decay  of  the  Roman  population 
date  from  the  first  century  before  Christ,  a  period  which 
history  has  shown  to  have  been,  not  one  of  retrogression, 
but  of  progress, — a  progress  which  was  well  maintained 
for  two  centuries  after  the  time  when  these  jeremiads 
had  become  familar.  It  is  also  forgotten  by  those  who 
make  use  of  the  half-told  tale  of  Roman  decadence 
that,  as  the  Roman  Empire  consolidated  itself,  it 
drew  for  its  support,  not  on  the  old  aristocracy  of  Rome, 
but  on  the  newer  population  of  the  Mediterranean 


54       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

basin,  and  that  this  population  was  decadent  or  was 
seriously  affected  by  the  relatively  fast  multiplication 
of  inferior  stocks  is  a  suggestion  for  which  I  have 
never  seen  any  evidence.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  look 
at  the  artificial  elimination  of  the  best  stocks  by  political 
and  religious  despotism,  we  get  much  more  definite  evi- 
dence of  national  deterioration.  Take,  for  example,  the 
case  of  Spain  in  the  sixteenth  century.  We  need  not 
assume  that  the  Protestant  reformers  were  man  for  man 
better  than  the  old  believers ;  but  we  may  fairly  suppose 
that  a  large  proportion  of  the  more  independent  minds 
and  more  active  thinkers  would  be  attracted  by  the  new 
creed,  and  when  we  find  that  these  were  eliminated  by 
the  process  of  auto  da  fe  to  the  number  of  tens  of 
thousands,  we  can  well  understand  that  in  Spain  the 
selection  effected  by  poUtical  circumstances  may  have 
been  such  as  to  denude  the  country  of  an  undue  pro- 
portion of  its  most  vigorous  stocks.  Speaking  broadly, 
if  the  more  social  qualities  are  to  have  their  chance, 
it  is  on  political  and  social  institutions  that  that  chance 
must  depend.  Freedom  of  thought  and  action,  freedom 
of  choice  by  women,  the  repression  of  violence  and 
fraud,  these  are  all  eugenic  agencies  which  tend  to 
diminish  the  contrast  between  the  successful  and  the 
fit.  So  regarded,  the  improvement  of  social  conditions 
is  seen  to  tell  both  ways  in  its  effect  on  the  stock. 
If  it  admits  of  variations  for  the  bad,  it  also  allows 
for  variations  for  the  good.  So  far  the  two  tendencies 
cancel  one  another.  But  we  may  go  a  step  farther. 
The  aciu.^..j^gress  of  humanity  depends  far  more 
pn  the  survival  of  the  best  than  on  the  elimination  of 
the  worst ;  provided  that  the  highest  tjrpes  can  always 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        55 

have  breathing  space,  we  may  be  assured  that  social, 
as  distinct  from  racial,  progress  will  continue.  Eugeni- 
cally  considered  then,  the  broad  duty  of  society  is  so  ^ 
to  arrange  its  institutions  that  success  is  to  the  socially 
fit,  and  this  is  only  possible  in  proportion  as  the  social 
order  is  based  on  principles  of  a  just  and  equitable  organ- 
ization. 

(3)  In  this  account  of  the  matter  I  have  assumed, 
in  accordance  with  the  preponderance  of  biological 
opinion,  that  environment  as  such  has  no  direct  effect 
upon  the  development  of  the  stock.  This  is  a  point 
on  which  some  schools  of  biologists  speak  with  an  assur- 
ance which  almost  amounts  to  dogmatism,  and  they  em- 
ploy this  principle  as  an  argument  to  prove  the  futility 
of  contemporary  efforts  at  social  improvement.  In 
so  doing  it  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  very  fre- 
quently they  fail  to  draw  the  necessary  distinction 
between  racial  and  social  progress.  Thus  in  one  of 
the  Eugenics  Laboratory  Lectures  ^  we  read :  — 

"Practically  all  social  legislation  has  been  based  on  the  assumption 
that  better  environment  meant  race  progress." 

I  beg  leave  to  doubt  whether  for  the  most  part  persons 
interested  in  social  legislation  have  given  any  profound 
consideration  to  the  question  of  race  progress.  What 
they  have  been  concerned  with  is  social  progress,  that 
is  to  say,  they  have  aimed  at  improving  the  actual  life 
of  the  people  and  the  building  up  of  a  better  social 
structure,  and  I  may  add  that  the  biological  terms  of 
race  and  environment,  nature  and  nurture,  are  not  cate- 

^  **  The  Relative  Strength  of  Nurture  and  Nature,'!  by  Ethel  M. 
Elderton. 


56       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

gories  to  satisfy  sociologists.  They  do  not  exhaust  the 
field.  From  one  point  of  view,  no  doubt,  social  in- 
stitutions may  be  regarded  as  an  environment  within 
which  the  individual  is  formed  and  to  which  he  has  to 
accommodate  himself.  But  the  actual  effect  of  social 
institutions  upon  life  is  not  to  be  understood  in  biological 
terms.  The  relation,  as  Professor  Henry  Jones  has  well 
pointed  out,  between  the  individual  and  society  is  far 
more  intimate.  It  is  much  more  like  an  organic  union. 
V  One  and  the  same  set  of  qualities  will  take  a  totally 
different  expression  according  as  the  social  environment 
differs.  The  very  same  motives,  the  same  original 
characteristics,  which  will  in  the  one  set  of  circumstances 
lead  a  man  to  unsocial  practices,  will,  if  suitably  directed, 
render  him  an  efficient  and  useful  citizen.  The  same 
motives  of  pride  and  self-assertion  which  in  a  land 
where  the  blood  feud  reigns  would  lead  a  man  to 
decorate  his  home  with  the  skulls  of  his  enemies  and 
their  wives  and  children,  will  in  a  civilized  society 
urge  him  on  to  commercial  or  professional  success,  and 
will  compel  him  to  serve  society  for  the  gratification 
of  his  own  ambition.  The  necessity  of  earning  a  living 
will  impel  a  man  to  robbery  and  fraud  or  to  honest 
and  useful  labor  in  accordance  with  the  opportunities 
which  the  social  system  holds  out  to  him.  The  driving 
power  which  under  unrestrained  competition  will  make 
a  man  a  hard  master  may  under  suitable  social  control 
be  directed  to  the  equally  efficient  and  humane  conduct 
of  business.  It  is  not  human  quality,  whether  original 
or  acquired,  that  differs  profoundly  from  period  to 
period.  It  is  the  turn  given  to  human  quality  by  the 
social  structure.     As  with  the  self-regarding,  so  with 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        57 

the  more  generous  impulses.  The  unreasoned  philan- 
thropy of  an  earlier  time  might  do  harm  by  indiscrimi- 
nate giving;  when  it  finds  rational  channels  for  its 
activity  it  will  prompt  a  man  to  throw  in  his  weight 
with  the  best  civic  movements  of  the  day.  Nor,  again, 
is  the  effect  of  social  institutions  to  be  measured  by 
modifications  in  the  qualities  of  individuals  as  that 
expression  would  be  generally  understood.  Take,  for 
example,  the  effect  of  education.  It  is  certainly  desir- 
able that  education  should  develop  the  intelligence, 
but  how  much  net  addition  is  made  to  intellectual 
capacity  by  educational  processes  is  exceedingly  diffi- 
cult to  measure.  Acquired  knowledge  or  skill,  on  the 
other  hand,  are  tangible  achievements  in  which  the 
response  of  the  individual  on  the  one  side  and  the 
teaching  provided  on  the  other  are  two  inseparable 
conditions.  It  is  acquirement  or  achievement,  e.g, 
knowledge,  skill,  discipline,  that  training  confers,  and 
the  modifications  thus  effected  in  a  man's  life  and  his 
functions  as  a  member  of  society  are  so  great  as  to 
amount  in  many  cases  to  a  change  of  kind  rather  than 
of  degree.  The  distinction  is  ignored  by  certain  writers 
of  the  eugenic  school,  who  seek  to  depreciate  the  effect 
of  nurture  as  compared  with  nature,  even  in  its  bearing 
on  the  individual.  But  apart  from  this  some  of  the 
methods  used  to  measiu-e  the  effect  of  the  environment 
are  of  very  doubtful  value.  Thus,  in  the  lecture 
already  quoted,  Miss  Elderton  seeks  to  measure  the 
effect  of  the  environment  by  utilizing  the  Report  of 
the  Charity  Organization  Society  on  certain  school 
children  in  Edinburgh.  The  home  environment  of 
the  children  is  considered  under  the  following  heads  :  — • 


58       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

The  number  of  people  per  room ; 

Good  economic  conditions ; 

Good  physical  condition  of  parents ; 

Good  moral  condition  of  parents. 
With  regard  to  the  last  point,  Miss  Elderton  admits 
there  is  room  for  variation  of  judgment,  and  one  would 
say  that  even  the  three  former  would  require  very  close 
investigation  in  order  to  form  an  accurate  classifica- 
tion. However,  having  made  this  classification.  Miss 
Elderton  proceeds  to  take  the  reports  on  certain  quali- 
ties of  the  children,  on  their  vision,  hearing,  glandular 
condition,  and  intelligence;  on  some  of  these  points 
I  confess  I  should  not  expect  the  environment  to  pro- 
duce any  very  marked  effect,  but  the  question  of  intelli- 
gence is  interesting  from  our  point  of  view,  and  here 
Miss  Elderton  is  able  tt)  produce  results  indicating  in 
her  opinion  a  very  small,  if  not  a  negligible,  effect. 
Good  economic  conditions  alone  show  a  small  influence 
upon  the  intelligence  alike  of  boys  and  girls. ^  On 
these  figures  it  must  be  remarked  that  they  include 

*  The  actual  correlations  are  as  follows :  — 

Boys         Girls 
Number    of    people    per   room    (intelli- 
gence)    .02  .04 

Good  economic  conditions  (intelligence)  .  .01  .16 
Good  physical  condition  of  parents  (intel- 
ligence)              -.04  .06 

Good  moral  condition  of  parents  (intelli- 
gence)   -.07  .03 

The  negative  signs  indicate  that  the  better  conditions  are  associated 
with  lower  intelligence.  The  insignificance  of  the  figures  is  to  be 
measured  by  the  fact  that  the  general  figure  of  correlation  for  hered- 
ity is  taken  by  the  writer  to  be  about  .49  in  the  case  of  intelligence. 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        59 

several  doubtful  and  even  unknown  quantities.  How- 
is  the  intelligence  of  boys  and  girls  measured?  On 
this  vital  point  we  have  no  information.  At  best  it 
represents  some  impression  of  somebody,  presumably 
of  teachers,  and  what  sort  of  standard  is  applied  by 
which  the  fractions  are  determined  we  are  not  told. 
But  if  we  take  the  figures  at  their  face  value,  we  find  an 
exceedingly  paradoxical  result.  It  is  constantly  as- 
sumed that  better  economic  and  social  conditions  are 
generally  indicative  of  superiority  of  stock.  In  that 
case  the  parents  conforming  to  the  better  conditions 
are,  it  is  to  be  inferred,  men  and  women  of  better 
stock;  and  according  to  this,  apart  altogether  from 
environmental  influences,  we  should  expect  their  chil- 
dren to  show  better  results.  We  should  expect  the 
full  correlation  worked  out  for  us  in  other  cases  of 
heredity.  How  is  it  that  this  fails  when  the  present 
test  is  applied?  We  seem  driven  to  the  conclusion 
either  that  this  particular  method  of  calculation  is 
misleading  or  that  the  general  assumption  upon  which 
many  of  the  sociological  arguments  of  Eugenists  are 
based,  that  the  socially  more  fortunate  classes  are  of 
the  best  hereditary  strain,  is  unfounded.  It  must  be 
added  that  when  the  home  conditions  are  used  as  a 
test  of  the  general  effect  of  the  environment,  some 
very  serious  omissions  are  made.  It  appears  to  be  for- 
gotten that  in  a  great  measure  the  environment  of  all 
the  children  attending  the  same  school,  or  even  schools 
of  the  same  class  in  a  single  town,  is  identical,  par- 
ticularly as  regards  the  effect  on  intelligence.  The 
school  teaching  is  identical  for  all,  and  beyond  that, 
all  the  children  are  born  in  the  same  area,  in  the  same 


60       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

town,  under  the  same  law,  and  have  to  conform  to  the 

same  standard  of    civiUzation ;   they  learn  the  same 

things  and  are  accessible  to  the  same  ideas.     We  get 

nothing  but  a  fractional  measure  of  the  environment 

when  we  merely  differentiate  home  surroundings. 

Lastly,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  writer  does  not  even 

I   take  in  home  surroundings  as  a  whole.     She  divides 

<    them  into  heads  and  under  each  head  finds  a  correlation 

,    which  is  very  small  compared  with  that  of  physical 

heredity.    Now,  if    the    comparison   were    to    denote 

'  anything  at  all,  it  must  begin  by  attempting  to  set  the 

whole  of  the  environmental  conditions  on  the  one  side 

against  the  whole  of  hereditary  conditions  on  the  other. 

*\To  take  one  environmental  condition  among  many  and 

.    to  compare  its  effect  with  the  total  effect  of  physical 

heredity  is  a  method  of  argument  which  can  throw  no 

•  light   on  the  question  at  issue,  and  to  take  several 

^  environmental  conditions  in  series  without  attempting 

'^o  sum  their  effect  is  to  produce  an  illusion  of  proof 

without  reality. 

An  illustration  equally  remarkable  in  its  own  way  of 
the  mental  processes  by  which  some  eugenic  writers  ar- 
rive at  conclusions  which  go  out  to  the  public  as  the  or- 
dinances of  the  scientific  world  may  be  found  in  another 
publication  of  the  same  laboratory  on  ^^The  Inheritance 
of  Vision."  The  writers.  Miss  Amy  Harrington  and 
Professor  Pearson,  in  sununarizing  their  conclusion  be- 
gin by  remarking  that  it  is  '^admittedly  only  a  first 
study."  ''No  one  can  recognize  its  defects  more  fully 
than  the  authors  themselves  do."  With  this  becomnig 
modesty  they  go  on  to  speak  of  the  difficulties  of  obtain- 
ing evidence  and  then  remark  that  as  far  as  "the  ad- 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        61 

mittedly  slender  data  of  this  first  study  '^  allow  certain 
specific  conclusions  may  be  formulated  which  they 
then  state  in  a  manner  to  which  no  objection  can  be 
taken.  Having  stated  them,  they  proceed  to  speak  in 
more  general  terms. 

"As  far  as  the  material  developed  in  this  memoir  goes,  it 
points,  if  not  overwhelmingly,  at  least  strongly,  to  the  moral: 
Pay  attention  to  breeding,  and  the  environmental  element  will 
not  affect  your  projects.  Improve  to  the  utmost  your  environ- 
ment, breeding  will  lay  low  your  schemes. 

"  The  first  thing  is  good  stock,  and  the  second  thing  is  good 
stock,  and  the  third  thing  is  good  stock,  and  when  you  have  paid 
attention  to  these  three  things,  fit  environment  will  keep  your 
material  in  good  condition.  No  environmental  or  educational 
grindstone  is  of  service,  unless  the  tool  to  be  ground  is  of  genuine 
steel  — •  of  tough  race  and  tempered  stock. 

"  To  brmg  home  this  fact  in  each  department  of  human  phy- 
sique and  mentality  seems  to  be  the  urgent  social  problem  of 
to-day." 

This  is  a  somewhat  rapid  transition  from  the  cautious 
and  scientific  to  the  dogmatizing  mood.  The  conclu- 
sions from  '^ admittedly  slender  data''  are  first  made 
to  suggest  a  general  conclusion  which  goes  far  beyond 
the  particular  case  investigated.  In  the  next  para- 
graph the  conclusion  is  dogmatically  asserted  without 
the  least  reference  to  the  slenderness  of  the  evidence, 
and  in  the  third  it  has  become  the  basis  of  practical 
statesmanship  and  to  drive  it  home  the  most  urgent  so- 
cial problem  of  the  day.  And  this  goes  forth  to  the 
world  as  the  decisive  word  of  true  science  with  its  cau- 
tion, its  detachment,  its  objectivity,  its  reasonableness. 

We  may  lay  down  with  some  confidence,  first,  that, 
as  to  the  relative  effect  of  nature  and  nurture  upon  the 


62       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

individual,  no  adequate  means  of  measurement  have 
yet  been  suggested;  and  secondly,  that  it  is  not  the 
modification  of  the  inherent  quaUties  of  the  individual 
that  is  alone  to  be  regarded,  but  the  actual  life  to  be 
lived  by  the  individual  in  society,  and  that  means,  when 
all  individuals  are  considered,  the  total  character  of  the 
social  fabric.  Lastly,  we  must  ask  whether,  in  a  sober 
review  of  our  biological  knowledge,  the  effect  of  the 
environment  can  be  so  completely  dismissed  as  some 
biologists  suppose.  The  more  cautious  adherents  of 
the  school  of  Weismann  are  careful  to  distinguish  two 
separate  questions.  The  first  is  whether  any  distinct 
quality  impressed  upon  the  individual  is  likely  to  be 
perpetuated  in  the  stock.  This  they  answer  with  a 
negative,  not  strictly  upon  the  ground  that  such  per- 
petuation has  in  all  cases  been  actually  disproved,  but 
rather  because  no  positive  evidence  is  forthcoming  of 
any  such  effect,  nor  has  any  method  been  shown  by 
which  it  could  be  brought  about;  but  they  point  out 
that  this  is  not  to  settle  the  further  question  whether 
the  environment  may  so  influence  the  organism  as  a 
whole /as  to  produce  some  effect  upon  the  germ.  Thus 
Professor  Thomson  writes  ^  of  the  possibility  that  the 
germ-plasm  should  be  '' affected  along  with  the  body  by 
a  deeply  saturating  influence,  which  nobody  has  ever 
denied.  The  influence  of  toxins,  for  example,  on  the 
germ-plasm  is  in  certain  cases  definitely  admitted. '^ 
Again  2  ''it  is  generally  admitted  that  when  parents 
have  healthy  occupations  their  offspring  are  likely  to  be 
more  vigorous.  The  matter  is  complicated  by  the  diffi- 
culty of  estimating  how  much  is  due  to  good  nurture 
1  p.  187.  2  lud.,  p.  190. 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       63 

before  and  after  birth.  It  is  not  unlikely,  too,  that 
some  profound  parental  modifications  may  influence 
the  general  constitution,  may  even  affect  the  germ-cells 
and  may  thus  have  results  in  the  offspring,  but  unless 
the  offspring  show  peculiarities  in  the  same  direction  as 
the  original  modifications,  we  have  no  data  bearing  pre- 
cisely on  the  question  at  issue. '^  The  question  at  issue 
is  how  the  rise  of  specific  qualities  in  the  individual  cor- 
responds to  impressed  qualities  in  the  parents.  The 
passage  indicates  that  there  may  be  a  broad  and  general 
effect  where  there  is  no  specific  effect. 

Now  when  we  are  considering  the  purely  biological 
problem  of  the  way  in  which  new  species  are  formed,  the 
question  whether  specific  acquired  characteristics  are 
hereditary  is  of  the  first  importance.  But  when,  as 
sociologists,  we  are  considering  whether  on  the  whole 
a  healthy  environment  is  likely  to  affect  the  germ- 
plasms  favorably  and  an  unhealthy  environment  unfa- 
vorably, we  are  dealing  with  a  matter  of  equal  practical 
importance,  which  is  not  to  be  determined  by  a  nega- 
tive answer  to  the  previous  question.  We  should  cer- 
tainly be  risking  a  good  deal  if,  in  the  present  stage  of 
our  biological  knowledge,  we  were  to  proceed  on  the  as- 
sumption that  no  degree  of  unhealthiness  in  the  condi- 
tions of  life  would  have  any  permanent  tendency  to 
deterioration,  and  here,  from  the  sociological  point  of 
view,  the  effect  upon  the  mother  would  be  just  as  im- 
portant as  the  effect  upon  the  germ-plasm.  The  biolo- 
gist tends  to  rule  out  this  consideration  because  from 
the  moment  the  embryo  is  formed  the  effect  upon  the 
germ-plasm  is  no  longer  in  question,  but  on  the  practical 
side  the  indirect  influences  upon  the  unborn  child  are 


64       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

just  as  important  as  the  influences  on  the  germinal 
cells  which  go  to  constitute  the  child.  It  must  be 
added  that  all  careful  students  of  heredity  admit  the 
plenitude  of  oiu*  ignorance  as  to  variation  and  that  there 
are  not  wanting  indications  that  the  environment  has 
indirect  and  subtle  effects  which  have  yet  to  be  measm-ed. 
We  shall  have  to  know  more  of  the  response  of  racial 
types  to  new  surroundings  and  of  the  mechanism  by 
which  this  response  is  effected  before  we  can  be  sure 
that,  not  indeed  by  the  direct  transmission  of  acquired 
characters,  but  by  some  far  more  subtle  series  of  spon- 
taneous responses  to  new  stimuli,  the  race  does  not  adapt 
itself,  as  a  race,  to  changed  conditions,  whether  for  good 
or  ill. 

(4)  Nevertheless,  we  are  told  that  the  multiplication 
of  inferior  stocks  and  the  relative  infertility  of  the  best 
is  a  serious  feature  of  the  social  life  of  our  day.  What 
are  the  facts  upon  which  this  warning  is  based?  In 
Professor  Pearson's  lecture  on  ''The  Problem  of  Prac- 
tical Eugenics''  we  find  a  table  comparing  the  fertihty 
in  pathological  and  in  normal  stocks.  The  patholog- 
ical stock  consists  of  deaf-mutes,  English  and  Ameri- 
can, tuberculous,  albinotic,  insane  stocks,  Edinburgh 
degenerates,  London  and  Manchester  mentally  defec- 
tive, and  criminals.  The  mean  size  of  the  family  for  all 
these  stocks  is  6.2.  With  these  are  compared  a  series 
composed  as  follows :  the  English  middle  class ;  family 
records  (presumably  English) ;  English  intellectual 
class;  working  class.  New  South  Wales;  Danish  pro- 
fessional class ;  Danish  working  class ;  Edinburgh  nor- 
mal artisan,  and  London  normal  artisan ;  and  the  mean 
of  these  is  5.5.    The  difference  as  it  stands  is  not  so 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       65 

very  alarming.  We  have  to  remark  that  the  working 
classes  of  New  South  Wales  and  the  professional  and 
working  classes  of  Denmark  are  not  properly  to  be  com- 
pared with  classes  of  the  British  population,  and  that 
these  tend  to  pull  down  the  average.  More  serious, 
perhaps,  are  the  figures  which  indicate  a  very  low  fer- 
tility in  the  two  classes  which  Professor  Pearson  adds 
of  English  intellectuals,  for  which  the  normal  size  of  the 
family,  as  given  by  Mr.  Sidney  Webb's  results,  is  stated 
to  be  only  1.5,  and  of  Harvard  graduates,  for  which  the 
corresponding  figure  is  2.0.  Putting  aside  altogether 
the  question  of  the  test  of  fitness  and  assuming  that,  for 
the  sake  of  argument,  we  have  here  some  proof  that  the 
class  that  we  should  wish  to  see  multiphed  is  relatively 
infertile,  we  must  ask  how  far  this  result  is  due  to  so- 
cial causes,  and  to  what  sort  of  social  causes  it  is  to  be 
attributed.  Biologists  are  famiUar  with  the  general  law, 
first  formulated  by  Herbert  Spencer,  that  individual 
development  and  fertility  vary  inversely ;  right  through  ' 
the  scale  of  creation  the  higher  type  reproduces  itself 
in  smaller  numbers,  and  it  seems  to  remain  true  among 
human  beings  that  the  race  is  upon  the  whole  recruited 
in  larger  numbers  from  the  normal  and  perhaps  even 
from  the  lower  types  than  from  the  higher.  Is  there  any 
reason  to  think  that  this  is  a  new  phenomenon  in  the 
history  of  human  development?  If  not,  we  can  say 
that,  though  it  is  a  regrettable  fact,  humanity  has  pro- 
gressed in  spite  of  it  and  that  this  would  be  only  one  sign 
among  others  of  the  general  truth  of  the  view  that  hu- 
man progress  is  social  and  not  racial.  But  are  there  not 
new  facts  to  be  taken  into  account  ?  One  there  cer- 
tainly is.    It  is  the  new  opportunities  opened  by  modern 


66       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

society  to  women  for  other  careers  than  that  of  the  wife 
and  mother.  There  is  the  increased  consideration  of  the 
more  thoughtful  men  for  the  health  of  their  wives  and 
of  the  more  thoughtful  men  and  women  for  the  up- 
bringing of  their  children.  These  considerations,  rather 
than  the  selfishness  to  which  it  is  commonly  imputed, 
ai-e  the  principal  causes  of  the  limitation  of  the  family 
among  more  civilized  peoples.  It  is  reasonable  that 
these  considerations,  just  as  they  are  in  themselves, 
should  be  balanced  by  a  longer  and  larger  view  of  the 
necessities  of  the  race,  and  it  is  probable  that,  so  far  as 
the  restrictive  tendency  has  gone  beyond  what  is  ac- 
tually necessary  for  healthy  conditions,  the  general  rec- 
ognition of  this  fact  would  tend  to  correct  it.  Just  as 
we  saw  in  an  earlier  lecture  that  the  Malthusian  teach- 
ing had  tended  to  lower  the  general  rate  of  reproduction, 
so,  in  response  to  a  widely  diffused  belief  that  the  qual- 
ity of  the  race  might  be  injuriously  affected  by  the  re- 
fusal of  the  best  individuals  to  contribute  to  it,  what  is 
excessive  in  the  tendency  would  correct  itself.  So  far 
the  Eugenist  is  within  his  rights  in  calling  attention  to 
the  dwindUng  of  the  family  among  the  more  educated 
classes.  He  is  wrong  only  if  he  insists  on  quantitative 
reproduction  at  the  expense  of  qualitative  life,  if  he  re- 
turns to  the  conception  of  woman  as  limited  in  her 
function  to  the  bearing  and  rearing  of  children,  and 
omits  from  consideration  the  fact  that  the  production 
of  a  capable  stock  at  the  expense  of  the  permanent 
sacrifice  of  all  that  is  most  desirable  in  the  life  of  one 
half  of  it,  is  not  an  intelligible  or  self-consistent  ideal. 
He  is  wrong  again  when  he  overlooks  the  increased 
sense  of  parental  responsibility  which,  gradually  spread- 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        67 

ing  through  all  classes  of  the  population,  expresses  itself 
in  the  view  that  it  is  wrong  to  bring  children  into  the 
world  for  whom  no  adequate  provision  can  be  made. 
He  is  wrong,  in  short,  if  he  does  not  seek  to  bring  his 
biological  requirement  into  conformity  with  sociological 
conditions.  It  must  be  added  that,  so  far  as  economic 
conditions  affect  the  birth-rate  in  different  classes,  a 
very  careful  analysis  is  necessary  to  determine  what 
precisely  these  economic  conditions  are.  The  limitation 
of  the  family  among  the  more  educated  classes  has  no 
connection  with  the  social  legislation  designed  to  amelio- 
rate the  social  conditions  of  the  poor.  On  this  point 
those  who  have  made  no  first-hand  study  of  economics 
are  apt  too  readily  to  take  up  the  cry  of  the  burden  of 
the  rates,  and  to  accept  the  view  that  the  middle  classes 
are  staggering  under  the  load  imposed  on  them  by  pro- 
vision for  the  poor.  This  view  of  the  incidence  of  taxa- 
tion will  not  bear  criticism.  I  must  not  here  attempt  a 
detailed  investigation,  but  it  may  be  shown  in  the  first 
place  that  the  total  provision  for  the  poorer  classes  in 
my  own  country  in  the  matter  of  education,  poor  rate, 
old  age  pensions,  and  all  the  rest  combined  is  but  a 
fraction  of  the  total  national  expenditure,  and  bears  a 
quite  insignificant  relation  to  the  actual  income  of  the 
middle  and  upper  classes.  It  may  be  shown,  moreover, 
that  of  the  burden  of  the  rates  a  great  part,  even  under 
our  present  system,  falls  not  upon  the  occupier,  who 
makes  the  direct  payment,  but  upon  owners  who  in 
the  main  are  much  too  wealthy  to  be  affected  in  their 
capacity  of  fathers  of  families  thereby.  And  it  may  be 
shown,  lastly,  that  by  revised  forms  of  rating  and  taxa- 
tion no  burden  need  be  thrown  upon  any  producer,  nor 


68       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

need  any  single  human  being  be  discouraged  thereby 
from  bringing  children  into  the  world  or  hindered  in 
rearing  them.  As  an  argument  against  ameliorative 
legislation  the  diminished  fertility  of  the  better  stocks 
is  an  entire  ignoratio  elenchi. 

But  even  if  the  inferior  stocks  are  breeding  more 
rapidly  than  the  better  ones,  we  have  still  to  ask  whether 
the  effect  on  the  race  is  as  serious  as  it  seems.  Observe 
I  speak  here  of  the  race.  I  am  not  thinking  of  the  social 
structure,  but  of  the  average  of  congenital  endowment 
in  the  race,  and  I  am  asking  how  far  this  will  be  affected 
by  the  greater  fertility  of  inferior  stocks.  To  the  older 
biological  theory  the  question  answered  itself.  The 
race  progressed  by  the  constant  cutting  off  of  the  tail, 
and  the  consequent  shifting  forward  of  the  mean  point  of 
capacity.  The  newer  discoveries  of  Bateson  and  De 
Vries  have  shown  that  the  problem  is  not  so  simple.  It 
becomes  more  and  more  probable  that  racial  progress 
depends  not  on  the  summation  of  small  fluctuations  that 
are  constantly  arising  and  dying  away  again,  but  on  more 
definite  mutations  which,  once  arising,  give  birth  to  a 
new  stock  with  a  new  mean  point  of  its  own.  The  indi- 
vidual descendants  of  the  new  stock  will  exhibit  quali- 
ties which  fluctuate  about  the  new  mean,  but  which  tend 
always  to  return  to  it.  The  fluctuations,  even  if  they 
persist  for  a  generation  or  two,  are  not  permanently 
transmitted.  They  arise  and  die  away  again.  The 
mutations,  on  the  other  hand,  are  of  permanent  signifi- 
cance. Now  any  large  fluctuation  may  have  the  same 
outward  appearance  as  a  true  mutation,  but  its  effect  as 
seen  in  subsequent  generations  will  be  quite  different. 
There  is  in  considerations  of    heredity  no  adequate 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       69 

ground  for  eliminating  the  one,  and  every  ground  for 
eliminating  the  other ;  and  to  apply  biological  concep- 
tions scientifically  in  practice  we  ought  to  be  able  to 
make  sure  to  which  class  any  particular  stock  evincing 
some  bad  quality  is  to  be  referred.  Now  it  is  not 
probable  that  a  large  population  like  that  of  a  modern 
nation  is  all  of  one  fundamental  type,  and  that  all  the 
individual  differences  are  mere  fluctuations.  But  it  is 
probable  that  the  many  fundamental  strains  that  con- 
stitute it  are  intricately  blended,  and  that  the  variations 
of  individuals  arise  partly  from  the  conditions  of  breed- 
ing and  partly  from  fluctuations  of  germinal  quality. 
If  this  is  so,  it  may  well  be  that  the  same  fundamental 
strains  are  permeating  the  whole  of  society  and  are  per- 
petuated without  alteration,  although  one  part  of  society 
may  be  more  fertile  than  another.  Furthermore,  many 
peculiarities  of  quahty  are  traceable  to  laws  of  blending. 
A  black  and  a  splashed-white  Andalusian  fowl  when 
mated  give  rise  to  a  blue,  but  the  black  and  white  ger- 
minal elements  are  permanent,  and  reappear  in  known 
proportions  in  subsequent  generations.  Now  there  is 
much  in  what  we  know  of  psychological  conditions  to 
suggest  that  the  laws  of  blending  may  be  of  even  greater 
importance  in  psychological  than  in  physical  genetics. 
For  we  rarely  find  that  individuals  differ  by  the  distinct 
presence  or  absence  of  some  specific  quality.  On  an- 
alysis mental  or  moral  differences  are  apt  to  resolve 
themselves  into  differences  in  proportion  and  in  the 
combination  of  elements.  It  is  quite  possible  then  that 
two  strains,  each  sound  in  itself,  should  when  united  pro- 
duce a  bad  result,  and  it  may  turn  out  that  the  true 
problem  of  eugenics  is  not  one  of  selective  breeding  but 


70       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

of  selective  mating.  Stocks  a  and  h  which  when  mated 
give  rise  to  idiots  or  deaf-mutes,  may  quite  conceivably 
mate  with  stocks  c  and  d  to  engender  normal  children. 
I  do  not  say  that  this  is  so.  I  suggest  only  that  it  is 
one  of  the  possibilities  to  be  taken  into  account.  And 
there  is  a  further  point.  It  may  be  that  some  stocks 
undesirable  in  themselves  contain  strains  that  suitably 
blended  with  others  are  of  value  to  the  rational  character 
as  a  whole.  It  may  be  that  a  roving  and  undisciplined 
disposition,  which  so  often  makes  a  vagrant,  sometimes 
carries  the  strain  from  which  originality  and  even  genius 
arise.  It  may  be  that  some  of  the  milder  and  gentler 
strains  give  rise  to  weaklings,  but  yet  are  necessar}^  in  the 
general  constitution  of  the  stock  to  temper  the  harder 
material.  We  might  easily  disturb  the  balance  of  the 
stock  on  a  whole  by  practising  unwarily  upon  some  of  its 
component  parts.  At  least  such  possibilities  indicate  the 
mass  of  work  that  has  to  be  done  in  the  field  of  heredity 
before  we  can  safely  apply  its  conceptions  to  the  practi- 
cal work  of  advancing  social  progress. 

But,  however  this  may  be,  I  would  emphasize  this  dis- 
tinction in  the  biological  outlook.  The  older  Galtonian 
view  working  with  small  variations  leads  to  the  sugges- 
tion that  natural  selection  is  a  permanent  necessity  of 
racial  progress ;  it  desires  to  subordinate  the  social  struc- 
ture in  general  to  that  end,  and  would,  if  consistently 
pushed  through,  lead  to  the  permanent  suppression, 
generation  after  generation,  of  the  weaker  stocks.  The 
newer  view  points  in  quite  another  direction.  It  finds 
the  basis  of  racial  progress  in  definite  mutations,  which, 
if  not  destroyed  by  an  unfavorable  environment,  estab- 
lish themselves^  and  are  not  impaired  by  the  preservation 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        71 

of  individual  descendants  which  manifest  the  new  qual- 
ity less  perfectly  than  others.  On  this  view  it  may  be 
said  that  the  most  fundamental  necessity  from  the  point 
of  view  of  racial  progress  is  to  maintain  an  environment 
in  which  any  new  mutation  of  promise  socially  consid- 
ered may  thrive  and  grow,  and  by  this  line  of  argument 
we  arrive  once  more  at  the  conclusion  that  liberty,  equal- 
ity of  opportunity,  and  the  social  atmosphere  of  justice 
and  considerateness  are  the  most  eugenic  of  agencies. 
On  the  other  hand,  there  may  in  this  view  exist  not  only 
bad  fluctuations,  but  some  bad  strains,  and  if  these  can 
be  isolated  out  and-  definitely  ascertained,  to  eliminate 
them  would  be  work  that,  if  it  is  to  be  done  at  all,  would 
have  to  be  done  once  and  would  not  need  to  be  done 
again.  The  general  problem  of  eugenics,  then,  would  be 
to  produce  an  environment  of  welcome  to  socially  use- 
ful mutations;  its  specific  task  to  determine  whether 
certain  strains  of  bad  tendency  could  be  isolated  out, 
and,  if  so,  to  consider  whether  their  perpetuation  could 
be  arrested  by  means  compatible  with  civilized  ethics. 
On  these  lines  eugenic  ideas  will,  I  can  quite  believe,  be 
found  to  have  a  function  in  the  work  of  social  regenera- 
tion, though  their  application  must  for  the  most  part 
await  the  progress  of  biological  knowledge.  On  the  other 
hand,  there  is  no  shadow  of  justification  for  the  wild 
words  in  which  eugenic  writers  frequently  condemn  the 
whole  trend  of  what  they  call  social  legislation.  I  find, 
for  example,  in  an  early  number  of  the  Eugenics  Review 
prominence  given  to  a  letter  to  the  Times  of  May  26, 
1909,  from  which  I  take  the  following  passages :  — 

"  Not  only  does  Parliament  in  its  so-called  wisdom  fail  to  apply 
science  to  the  production  of  hereditary  legislators,  but  in  all  recent 


72       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

social  legislation  it  has  actually  penalized  the  fitter  classes  of  so- 
ciety in  the  interests  of  the  less  fit.  .  .  ,  The  least  fit  class  in 
the  country  is  the  old  people  who  have  failed  to  provide  any  sav- 
ings against  their  old  age,  and  that  large  class  of  cheats  who  man- 
age to  pretend  that  they  are  in  that  case.  Such  so-called  social 
legislation  tends  to  act  in  the  same  way.  The  birth-rate  of  the 
fitter  is  diminishing  year  by  year,  and  we  calmly  sit  by  and  watch 
the  consequent  degeneration  of  our  race  with  idle  hands.  We  take 
the  human  rubbish  that  emerges  and  give  it  compulsory  education, 
Housing  Acts,  inspection  of  all  sorts  and  at  all  seasons,  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  fitter  class,  and  imagine  that  better  results  will  ensue 
than  if  we  left  the  whole  business  alone.  Are  we  right  ?  or  are  the 
horse  breeders  right  ?  They  have  demonstrably  improved  the  race 
horses  and  with  great  rapidity.  The  old  system  of  "let  alone" 
also  improved,  though  more  slowly,  the  race  of  men.  It  is  only 
the  modern  system  of  penalizing  the  fit  for  the  sake  of  the  unfit  that 
seems  to  be  put  in  action  simultaneously  with,  if  it  does  not  cause, 
an  observed  race  degeneration."  ^ 

This  might  pass  as  an  individual  opinion,  but  it  is 
adopted  very  cordially  by  the  Eugenics  Review,  the 
recognized  and  authoritative  exponent  of  the  eugenics 
movement  in  England. 

"The  views  he  expresses  coinciding,  as  they  do,  so  remarkably 
with  our  own,  are  those  of  an  outsider  who  has  wandered  far  and 
wide  keeping  his  eyes  open.  Like  Monsieur  Jourdain  with  his  prose, 
he  talks  our  eugenic  language  without  knowing  it.  This  is  why 
we  gladly  reproduce  in  full  what  he  has  so  well  said." 

A  recent  number  of  the  Review  ^  is  wholly  dedicated 
to  the  criticism  of  the  Poor  Law  Reports  from  the  eu- 
genic point  of  view,  and  though  this  is  upon  the  whole 
far  more  discriminating,  and  the  crudities  above  quoted 
are  by  implication  rejected  as  the  ignorant  prejudices  of 

1  Eugenics  Review,  July,  1909,  pp.  66,  67.     ^  November,  1910. 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       73 

outsiders,  yet  the  line  of  criticism  taken  illustrates,  to 
say  the  least,  a  tendency  which  has  to  be  very  carefully 
watched.  Both  branches  of  the  commission,  we  are 
told  (p.  172),  started  with  the  assumption  that  the 
pauper  was  a  normal  person  made  necessitous  by  cir- 
cumstances. Such  round  generalization  will  surprise 
any  one  who  has  carefully  studied  the  two  reports. 
The  majority  report,  in  particular,  is  the  work  of  persons 
who  are  well  known  to  have  carried  their  emphasis  on 
character  almost  to  what  seemed  to  some  of  their  critics 
to  be  the  breaking  point ;  and,  broadly  speaking,  having 
studied  the  two  reports  with  care,  I  may  say  roundly 
that  in  both,  though  in  different  ways,  the  aim  is 
precisely  not  to  overlook  individual  character,  but  to 
achieve  a  just  demarcation  of  the  legitimate  spheres  of 
social  and  individual  responsibility.  Take,  for  example, 
the  treatment  of  unemployment.  It  is  perfectly  true 
that  some  of  those  who  are  in  this  condition  suffer  from 
defect  of  their  own,  whether  congenital  or  acquired, 
but  no  one  looking  at  the  question  as  a  whole,  no  one 
even  acquainted  with  the  elementary  figures  published 
month  by  month  in  the  English  Labor  Gazette,  can  over- 
look the  part  played  by  social  changes  for  which  the 
individual  is  not  responsible.  Now,  what  is  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  commissioners  ?  In  both  cases  alike, 
though  with  differences  of  detail,  the  object  is  to  save 
from  hardship  the  man  who  is  suffering  from  social 
changes  which  he  cannot  control,  and  thereby  to  make 
it  possible  for  the  first  time  to  deal,  with  due  disciplinary 
rigor,  with  him  whose  idleness  is  voluntary,  and  to  apply 
curative  and  reformatory  measures  to  those  whose  mis- 
fortunes are  due  to  incapacity.     The  thesis  of  the  mi- 


7 


74       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

nority  report,  in  particular,  is  that  the  wastrel  cannot  be 
dealt  with  satisfactorily  until  he  is  parted,  by  a  clear  line 
of  demarcation,  from  the  man  whose  troubles  are  due  to 
circumstance,  and  from  the  eugenic  point  of  view  what 
better  beginning  could  be  made  ?  If  we  are  to  discover 
whether  wastrels  are  men  of  degenerate  stock,  and  if  we 
are  ultimately  to  take  measures  to  prevent  the  degener- 
ate stock  from  breeding,  there  is  one  preliminary  con- 
dition that  we  must  realize ;  we  must  first  know  that  the 
stocks  that  we  are  dealing  with  are  in  reality  hopeless, 
and  for  this  purpose  we  must  first  have  our  social  con- 
ditions so  adjusted  that  all  men  who  are  in  reality 
capable  of  adapting  themselves  to  a  well-ordered  social 
organization  shall  have  the  opportunity  of  proving  what 
is  in  them.  The  social  environment  must  be  established 
jupon  ethical  lines  before  we  can  say  that  the  successful 
I  are  the  fit,  or  that  the  unsuccessful  deserve  elimination. 
In  support  of  its  opinion  that  pauperism  is  in  the  main 
a  hereditary  taint,  the  Eugenics  Review  proceeds  in  all 
solemnity  to  narrate  the  lamentable  history  of  a  num- 
ber of  pauper  families,  as  though  hereditary  pauperism 
were  a  new  phenomenon  or  one  of  which  Poor  Law  ad- 
ministrators had  not  long  since  learned  to  take  account. 
We  know  there  are  hereditary  paupers,  but  to  begin  with 
we  have  to  ask  what  is  the  nature  of  the  heredity,  and  I 
find  no  attempt  to  make  this  discrimination  in  the  pages 
of  the  Review}  A  is  a  pauper,  and  his  children,  B,  C, 
and  D,  are  paupers,  and  D  marries  another  pauper,  and 

*  See  p.  187,  where  the  fact  that  successive  generations  of  the  same 
family  contains  an  undue  proportion  of  paupers  is  made  to  point 
to  the  conclusion  that  pauperism  is  due  to  inherent  defects  which 
are  hereditarily  transmitted  I 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        75 

of  their  children  again  three  out  of  four  are  paupers.  No 
doubt.  But  the  Eugenist  seems  to  forget  that  all  classes 
are  in  the  main  hereditary.  The  average  individual  is 
he  who  neither  rises  much  above  nor  sinks  below  the 
position  in  which  he  is  born ;  and  as  an  individual  of 
average  endowments  born  in  the  landlord  or  the  profes- 
sional or  the  artisan  class  will  become  a  landlord,  profes- 
sional man,  or  an  artisan ;  so  the  individual  of  average 
endowments  born  in  pauperism  may  be  expected  to 
remain  in  the  confines  of  pauperism.  If  we  would  know 
generally  how  much  of  the  heritage  of  pauperism  is  due 
to  the  conditions  under  which  the  children  make  their 
start  in  life,  and  how  much  to  hereditary  taint,  there  is 
one  method  of  determination.  It  is  that  of  securing  equal 
opportunity  to  the  least  and  to  the  most  fortunate,  and 
to  secure  this  equal  opportunity  is  a  problem  of  reorgan- 
izing institutions.  Against  any  such  reorganization,  pro- 
ceeding open-eyed  with  a  clear  view  of  individual  dif- 
ferences, the  eugenic  criticism  is  wholly  beside  the  mark. 
The  whole  of  the  argument  admits  of  being  summed 
up  in  a  few  sentences.  So  far  as  the  eugenic  principle 
advocates  the  substitution  of  rational  for  natural  selec- 
tion, it  is,  in  the  abstract,  upon  firm  ground.  Where  it 
can  be  clearly  estabUshed  that  a  stock  is  tainted  with  a 
hereditary  blemish  so  great  as  to  outweigh  its  merits, 
it  is  desirable  that  that  stock  should  not  be  perpetuated. 
That  is  already  recognized  ethically  as  a  duty  and  is 
acted  on  by  many  individuals,  in  cases  where  there  is 
such  a  taint  as  that  of  insanity.  There  is  every  reason 
why  our  knowledge  on  these  matters  should  be  carried 
further  and  systematized,  and  it  is  possible  that  in  cer- 
tain cases  it  may  be  found  desirable  to  crystallize  ethical 


76       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

sentiment  in  positive  law;  for  example,  in  the  case  of 
such  a  class  as  the  feeble-minded,  where  permanent 
care  is  desirable  for  the  benefit  of  the  individual,  it  may 
be  right  that,  Es  a  condition  of  such  care,  restriction 
from  marriage  should  be  insisted  on  by  society  in  the 
future  interest  of  the  rac6^>  On  the  other  hand,  the  use 
of  eugenic  arguments  against  legislation  designed  to  re- 
place the  struggle  for  existence  by  ordered  social  co- 
operation is  at  bottom  a  misapplication  of  the  principle. 
It  rests  on  the  survival  of  the  older  ideas  of  natural  selec- 
tion under  a  new  form,  in  new  terminology.  The  method 
of  social  legislation  should  not  be  to  accommodate  in- 
stitutions to  the  survival  of  the  stronger ;  it  should  be 
to  bring  the  social  structure  into  accordance  with  sound 
principles  of  social  cooperation.  In  such  a  system 
those  who  are  fit  in  the  true  sense  of  the  term,  those, 
that  is  to  say,  who  are  capable  of  becoming  useful  mem- 
bers of  the  social  organization,  can  find  their  place ;  and 
it  is  only  when  all  such  persons  are  endowed  with  full 
opportunities  to  adapt  themselves  to  social  requirements 
that  the  failures  of  society  can  be  legitimately  regarded 
as  the  unfit.  Those  who  so  prove  their  unfitness  are 
then  legitimate  objects  for  institutional  tutelage,  and  it 
will  then  for  the  first  time  become  possible  to  enter  into 
the  question  of  their  right  to  propagate  their  like.  That 
question  would  then  be  determined  by  the  light  that  our 
knowledge  of  heredity  could  throw  upon  the  future  of 
their  descendants.  These  views  do  not  appear  to  me  to 
be  out  of  accord  with  the  sounder  teaching  of  the  more 
cautious  biologists.  They  conflict  only  with  those  en- 
thusiasts who  make  rash  applications  based  on  confusion 
of  the  new  teaching  with  the  old.     To  illustrate  this 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS       77 

contrast  I  cannot  do  better  than  set  side  by  side  the 
sociological  applications  which  Professor  Bateson  would 
make  of  Mendelian  principles  with  the  deductions 
drawn  from  his  remarks  by  an  enthusiastic  reviewer  in 
the  pages  of  the  Eugenics  Review.  Let  us  hear  first  the 
reviewer,  Mr.  G.  P.  Mudge,  in  the  Eugenics  Review  for 
July,  1909,  p.  137:  — 

"With  regard  to  man,  it  is  now  clear  that  what  social  reform, 
legislation,  and  philanthropy  have  failed  to  accomplish,  can  be 
achieved  by  biology.  Tell  the  student  of  genetics  what  type  of 
nation  we  desire,  within  the  limits  of  the  characters  which  the 
nation  already  possesses,  and  confer  upon  him  adequate  powers, 
and  he  will  evolve  it.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  if  he  were 
instructed  to  evolve  a  "fit"  nation,  i.e.  one  of  self-rehant  and  self- 
supporting  individuals,  in  the  course  of  a  few  generations  there 
would  be  neither  workhouses,  hospitals,  unemployables,  congenital 
criminals,  or  drunkards. 

"Students  of  eugenics  will  turn  with  interest  to  the  concluding 
pages  of  Professor  Bateson's  book ;  there  he  deals  with  the  sociologi- 
cal appHcation  of  the  science  of  genetics.  We  commend  every 
advocate  of  social  panaceas  and  of  legislative  interference  with 
natural  processes  to  read  this  part  of  the  book.  In  a  few  well- 
chosen  sentences  he  gives  expression  to  the  judgment  of  every 
biologist,  alike  of  the  present  and  the  past,  who  has  given  to  social 
problems  adequate  and  unbiassed  thought.  For  nothing  is  more 
evident  to  the  naturalist  than  that  we  cannot  convert  inherent  vice 
into  innate  virtue,  nor  change  "leaden  instincts  into  golden  conduct," 
nor  "transform  a  sow's  ear  into  a  silken  purse"  by  any  known  social 
process.  Our  vast  and  costly  schemes  of  free,  compulsory,  element- 
ary education,  of  County  Council  scholarships  and  evening  classes, 
which  are  among  these  social  processes  supposed  to  possess  the 
magic  virtue  of  transforming  the  world  into  a  fairyland,  may  be  a 
delusion  and  a  danger.  And  so,  too,  may  be  all  the  other  well-in- 
tentioned but  costly  panaceas  that  harass  and  tax  and  eventually 
destroy  the  fit  in  order  to  attempt,  for  they  can  never  achieve,  the 
salvation  of  the  unfit. " 


78       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

Let  us  turn  from  these  sweeping  condemnations,  these 
triumphant  prophecies,  these  large  assertions  of  the 
powers  of  the  biologist,  to  Professor  Bateson's  own 
words,  the  very  words  to  which  we  are  referred  in  justifi- 
cation of  Mr.  Mudge's  statement.  They  are,  unfortu- 
nately, too  long  to  quote  as  a  whole,  but  I  will  take  the 
leading  points. 

"To  the  naturalist  it  is  evident  that,  while  the  elimination  of  the 
hopelessly  unfit  is  a  reasonable  and  prudent  policy  for  society  to 
adopt,  any  attempt  to  distinguish  certain  strains  as  superior  and 
to  give  special  encouragement  to  them  would  probably  fail  to  ac- 
complish the  object  proposed  and  most  certainly  be  unsafe." 

Contrast  this  with  the  proclamation,  "Tell  the  student 
of  genetics  what  type  of  nation  we  require  ...  he 
will  evolve  it.^'  Let  us  turn  back  again  to  Professor 
Bateson :  — 

"Some  serious  physical  and  mental  defects,  almost  certainly  also 
some  morbid  diatheses  and  some  of  the  forms  of  vice  and  criminal- 
ity, could  be  eradicated  if  society  so  determined.  That,  however, 
is  the  utmost  length  to  which  the  authority  of  physiological  science 
can,  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  be  claimed  for  interference. 
More  extensive  schemes  are  already  being  advocated  by  writers 
who  are  neither  Utopians  nor  visionaries.  Their  proposals  are 
directed  in  the  belief  that  society  is  more  likely  to  accept  a  positive 
plan  for  the  encouragement  of  the  fit  than  negative  interference  for 
the  restraint  of  the  unfit.  Genetic  science,  as  I  have  said,  gives  no 
clear  sanction  to  these  proposals.  It  may  also  be  doubted  whether 
the  guiding  estimate  of  popular  sentiment  is  well  founded.  Society 
has  never  shown  itself  averse  to  adopt  measures  of  the  most  strin- 
gent and  even  brutal  kind  for  the  control  of  those  whom  it  regards 
as  its  enemies. 

"Genetic  knowledge  must  certainly  lead  to  new  conceptions 
of  justice,  and  it  is  by  no  means  impossible  that,  in  the  light  of 
such  knowledge,  public  opinion  will  welcome  measures  likely  to  do 


VALUE  AND  LIMITATIONS  OF  EUGENICS        79 

more  for  the  extinction  of  the  criminal  and  degenerate  than  has  been 
accomplished  by  ages  of  penal  enactment." 

With  so  cautious  and  reasoned  a  statement  social 
philosophy  can  in  principle  have  no  ground  of  quarrel. 
It  can  only  desire  that  the  data  may  be  as  fully  as  pos- 
sible ascertained  and,  in  proportion  as  civic  effort  suc- 
ceeds in  reorganizing  the  social  structure  on  the  basis 
of  justice  and  equity,  it  will  be  prepared  to  deal  with 
the  strains,  if  they  exist,  with  which  a  life  in  accord- 
ance with  equity  is  incompatible. 


CHAPTER  IV 
Social  Harmony  and  the  Social  Mind 

Our  conclusions  so  far  are  two.  First,  the  biological 
conditions  of  human  development  are  not  such  as  to 
present  any  insuperable  barrier  to  progress.  Second, 
we  may  expect  to  find  progress,  if  anywhere,  rather  in 
social  than  in  racial  modifications.  But  before  we  in- 
quire further  whether  progress  is  a  fact  to  be  discovered 
in  this  direction,  we  must  consider  more  carefully  what 
progress  is.  Hitherto  we  have  been  content  with  de- 
scribing it  as  a  process  of  the  reahzation  of  ends  of 
human  value,  ethical  ends.  We  must  seek  to  define  this 
conception,  not  indeed  with  the  fullness  which  it  de- 
serves, but  sufficiently  for  our  purpose,  that  is,  for  the 
purpose  of  estimating  the  trend  of  evolution.  We  must 
form  a  closer  definition  of  progress,  and  then  compare 
it  with  the  actual  course  of  evolution,  if  we  are  to  obtain 
a  plain  answer  to  the  question  whether  the  movement 
of  social  evolution  in  general  or  the  evolution  of  any 
given  society  in  particular  is  or  has  been  a  movement  of 
progress. 

There  is  a  tendency,  calling  itself  scientific,  to  dispense 
with  one  side  of  this  question  and  to  educe  the  concep- 
tion of  value  from  the  trend  of  evolution  itself.  I  need 
hardly  before  this  audience  spend  time  in  combating  this 
confusion  or  argue  at  length  that  history  is  not  phi- 
losophy.   Rn.  describing  the  process  by  which  things 

80 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         81 

have  come  to  be  what  they  are^e  are  not  justifying 
their  existence.  We  may  incidentally  bring  to  light 
facts  which  serve  for  their  justification,  or  possibly  for 
their  excuse,  if  to  understand  all  is  to  pardon  all.  But 
this  is  not  of  the  essence  of  the  matter.  Rational  justi- 
fication and  historical  narrative  belong  to  two  different 
orders  of  investigation.  Nor,  again,  if  we  prove  the  ex- 
istence of  a  tendency,  do  we  thereby  prove  that  that  tend-i* 
ency  is  desirable.  Few  would  afiirm  the  contrary  in 
black  and  white.  Yet  if  we  look  at  the  kind  of  argu- 
ment that  is  popular  in  the  press  or  on  the  platform,  we 
must  admit  that  very  many  people  slide  with  the  great- 
est apparent  ease  from  the  one  point  of  view  to  the  other. 
To  show  that  a  certain  line  of  pohcy  accords  with  the 
tendencies  of  the  day,  that  it  is  a  part  of  our  manifest 
destiny  as  a  nation,  that  it  is  inevitable,  and  so  forth, 
are  highly  popular  rhetorical  devices  for  recommending 
it  to  the  desires,  and  even  to  the  consciences  of  mankind. 
As  a  social  creature  man  does  not  like  to  be  left  out  in 
the  cold.  He  loves  to  be  in  the  swim,  and  when  he  is 
told  that  his  side  is  winning,  that  its  success  is  so  certain 
that  his  own  vote  is  little  more  than  a  formality,  he  makes 
all  the  more  haste  to  record  that  vote,  and  add  his  unit 
to  the  swelling  maj  ority .  In  this  way  and  by  such  means 
as  these  do  prophecies  become  the  causes  of  their  own 
fulfilment.  It  requires  some  detachment,  not  indeed  to 
admit  in  the  abstract,  but  to  hold  fast  in  the  concrete 
the  simple  truth  that  of  existing  tendencies  some  may 
be  good,  some  bad,  and  some  indifferent,  and  that 
it  is  the  function  of  a  reasoning  creature  to  choose 
among  them  and  throw  in  his  weight  with  the  best. 
There  is  indeed  one  theory  on  which  a  rational  choice 


82       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

becomes  impossible.  If  society  moves  by  a  mechanical 
necessity  in  which  the  will  of  human  beings  plays  no 
part,  there  is  no  need  to  discuss  what  is  desirable  or  the 
reverse.  The  only  question  of  interest  is  what  will  be, 
and  whether  it  ought  to  be  is  an  academic  point  of  no 
practical  concern.  Whether  this  theory  is  tenable  is  a 
question  on  which  our  discussion  as  it  advances  will,  I 
hope,  throw  some  light.  But  I  may  for  the  sake  of  clear- 
ness say  this  much  in  advance.  We  shall  have  to  recog- 
nize not  merely  the  existence,  but  the  constant  extension 
of  mind,  of  will,  and  therefore  of  human  choice  as  an; 
actual  force  in  the  evolution  of  society,  and  if  we  arei 
right  in  this,  it  follows  that  the  general  belief  that  some 
tendency  is  desirable  is  a  factor  to  be  seriously  taken  into 
account  in  estimating  its  future.  This  conclusion  is 
not  necessarily  inconsistent  with  a  certain  form  of 
rational  determinism,  but  it  is  inconsistent  with  any 
mechanical  or  materialist  theory  which  renders  rational 
conceptions  of  value  practically  insignificant.  But  if 
we  reject  any  such  theory,  and  admit  the  influence  of 
rational  choice  on  social  tendencies,  there  is  good  reason 
for  a  systematic  inquiry  which  shall  enable  us  to  decide 
what  tendencies  are  upon  the  whole  desirable  or  other- 
wise. 

In  thus  admitting  the  necessity  of  a  social  philosophy 
I  am  aware  that  I  have  given  hostages  to  fortune.  You 
may  reasonably  call  upon  me  to  stand  and  deliver  the 
said  philosophy,  and  unless  I  am  prepared  to  do  so,  you 
may  decline  to  listen  to  anything  further  that  I  have 
to  say  on  social  progress.  But  on  my  side  I  may  be 
allowed  to  put  in  a  plea  of  mitigation,  and  it  is  one  which 
I  am  sure  will  appeal  to  you.     A  complete  exposition 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         83 

of  a  social  philosophy  would  involve  a  searching  inquiry 
into  the  first  principles  of  value,  that  is  to  say  into 
ethics,  and  even,  I  fear,  into  metaphysics  as  well.  You 
would  not  thank  me  if,  at  this  stage  and  with  the  amount 
of  time  at  our  disposal,  I  were  to  call  on  you  to  follow  me 
into  an  inquiry  of  this  magnitude.  But  if  I  dispense 
you  from  the  labor  of  listening  to  such  a  disquisition, 
you  on  your  part  must  allow  me  to  make  certain  initial 
assumptions.  I  will  be  as  modest  as  possible.  I  will  noj 
assume  that  Ufe  is  something  intrinsically  good,  but[j  \j 
must  assume  that  the  good  for  man  is  to  be  found  in 
some  kind  of  life,  not  in  the  negation  of  lifeT]^  I  will  not 
assume  that  fullness  of  vitality  is  as'such  desirable,  but-. 
I  must  assume  that,  other  things  equal,  the  fuller  life  is  ' 
on  the  whole  the  more  desirable.  I  will  not  assume  that 
happiness,  however  attained,  is  good,  but  I  must  assume 
that  there  is  some  form  of  happiness  which  is  good,  or,  at*^ 
lowest,  that  misery  is  an  evil.  I  will  not  assume  that  the 
full  realization  of  the  capacities  of  mind  defines  the  end 
of  life,  but  I  must  assume  that  some  form  of  such  reali- 
zation is  an  integral  element  in  a  desirable  life.  Finally, 
I  will  not  assume  that  all  social  life  is  good,  still  less 
that  social  growth  is  necessarily  a  change  for  the  better, 
but  I  must  assume  that  a  life  which  is  completely  social 
—  which  fully  realizes  the  social  capacities  of  man  — 
is  good,  and  that  if  we  use  the  phrase  ^^  social  develop- 
ment" in  a  precise  sense  as  a  short  expression  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  such  a  life,  social  development  is  good. 
All  these  assumptions  can,  of  course,  be  made  the  subject 
of  philosophic  criticism.  It  is  held  by  many  that  the 
good  for  man,  or  the  least  evil,  consists  really  in  nega- 
tion, not  in  greater  fullness  of  life,  but  in  the  restriction 


84       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

of  effort  and  the  eventual  overcoming  of  the  will  to  live. 
It  is  held  by  many  that  the  good  is  not  to  be  sought  in 
this  life  at  all,  but  in  preparation  for  another.  It  is  held 
that  the  general  all-round  development  of  mind  is  a 
secondary  matter,  that  the  beginning  of  true  wisdom  is 
just  the  submission  of  the  soul  to  the  Guiding  Will.  It 
is  held  that  social  life  is  of  secondary  tnoment,  and  that 
what  matters  for  each  man  is  to  discipline  his  own  heart 
and  to  save  his  own  soul.  Thus  I  am  aware  that  in  set- 
ting out  my  position  I  am  making  assumptions,  and  I 
ndo  not  claim  for  these  assumptions  the  character  of  axio- 
matic truths.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  them  capable 
of  proof,  and  on  another  occasion  I  should  be  willing  to 
submit  them  to  the  test.  For  the  present  I  set  them  up 
merely  as  assumptions,  to  show  you  the  basis  on  which  I 
am  proceeding,  and  the  only  test  to  which  I  shall  sub- 
ject them  is  the  indirect  one  of  drawing  out  some  of 
their  results  and  showing  you  whither  they  lead  us. 

I  may  begin  with  the  conception  of  social  develop- 
ment, and  I  will  endeavor  to  define  it  a  little  further  and 
to  see  how  it  stands  related  to  our  other  assumptions. 
Now  the  full  meaning  of  a  term  like  development  is  to  be 
approached  rather  through  concrete  experience  than 
by  the  road  of  abstract  definition.  Yet  here  and  there 
an  abstract  definition  may  help  us,  and  no  help  is  to  be 
despised.  As  to  this  particular  term,  I  shall  not  attempt 
any  new  definition.  I  shall  content  myself  for  the 
present  with  the  familiar  conception  of  maturation  of  that 
which  previously  existed  in  germ,  the  active  realization 
of  something  which  is  at  first  a  mere  potentiality.  These 
are  terms  which  in  the  end  will  require  a  far  closer  ex- 
amination, but  that  examination  I  must  ask  you  on  this 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         85 

occasion  to  forego,  I  remind  you  only  that  in  general 
the  process  of  development  involves  quantitative 
growth  and  increase,  so  that,  for  example,  if  we  speak 
of  the  development  of  mind,  we  mean  that  there  is  more 
mind,  that  it  becomes  a  larger  factor  in  life,  that  it  covers 
a  wider  sphere.  To  this  it  must  be  added  that  all 
organic  growth  involves  a  correlated  series  of  changes 
among  parts  that  operate  in  concert.  It  is  never  mere 
quantitative  extension.  It  is  a  process  by  which  many 
elements  emerge  into  definite  characteristic  distinctness, 
while  maintaining  unimpaired  unity.  So  much  it  is  well 
to  bear  in  mind  as  to  development  in  general.  But  as 
to  social  development  a  little  more  must  be  said :  — 

(1)  Society  exists  in  individuals.  When  all  the  gen- 
erations through  which  its  unity  subsists  are  counted 
in,  its  life  is  their  life,  and  nothing  outside  their  hfe. 
The  individuals  themselves,  indeed,  are  profoundly  mod- 
ified by  the  fact  that  they  form  a  society,  for  it  is 
through  the  social  relation  that  they  realize  the  greater 
part  of  their  own  achievements.  Each  man  is,  so  to  say, 
the  meeting  point  of  a  great  number  of  social  relations. 
Each  such  relation  depends  on  him,  on  his  qualities,  on 
his  actions,  and  also  affects  him  and  modifies  his  quali- 
ties and  his  actions.  The  whole  complex  of  such  rela- 
tions constitutes  the  life  of  society.  It  follows  that 
social  development  is  also  in  the  end  personal  or  indi- 
vidual development.  If  society  develops  in  any  given 
direction,  the  persons  constituting  it  develop  accord- 
ingly, and  if  development  as  such  means  a  movement 
towards  a  fuller  and  more  complete  life,  then  social  de-l 
velopment  means  a  movement  towards  a  fuller  and  more 
complete  life  for  the  persons  of  whom  society  consists. 


V 


86       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

It  will  not  escape  your  notice  that  this  conclusion  makes 
a  tacit  postulate  of  no  small  moment.  It  postulates  a 
possible  harmony  between  the  claims  of  different  per- 
sons, and  that  such  a  harmony  can  be  found  is,  I  think, 
the  fundamental  postulate  of  social  ethics.  It  is  not  an 
unproven  or  unprovable  postulate.  On  the  contrary,  I 
think  that  proof  of  it  can  be  adduced.  But  to  offer 
that  proof  would  take  me  into  the  region  of  ethical  first 
principles,  into  which,  as  I  have  said,  I  can  hardly  ask 
^  you  now  to  follow  me.  In  default  you  must  let  me 
assume  such  a  harmony  to  be  possible ;  and  to  find  the 
way  and  means  thereto  then  becomes  the  problem  of 
social  ethics.  It  was  the  mistake  of  some  earlier  writers, 
especially  of  a  certain  school  of  economists,  to  assume 
that  the  lines  of  harmony  were  so  clearly  prescribed  by 
the  very  nature  of  mankind  that  each  man  had  only  to 
follow  his  own  apparent  interest,  and  the  best  possible 
social  results  would  ensue.  Life  unfortunately  is  not  so 
shnple.  The  operation  of  enlightened  self-interest  lead- 
ing each  man  along  the  path  of  least  resistance  to  the 
goal  of  greatest  desire  does  not  produce  social  peace  or 
social  progress.  The  line  of  harmony  is  rather  the  nar- 
row path,  every  divergence  from  which  involves  collision 
and  more  or  less  of  frustration  and  misery  to  some  one. 
It  is  not  any  and  every  development  of  the  individual 
which  is  socially  desirable,  or  even  socially  possible. 
For  if  one  man's  personality  gains  till  he  bestrides  the 
narrow  world  like  a  Colossus,  then  it  remains  for  the  rest 
to  peep  in  and  out  and  find  themselves  dishonored 
graves.  His  overgrown  development  means  for  the 
mass  not  development,  but  extinction ;  and  in  lesser 
degree  a  similar  discord  results  from  every  development 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         87 

of  the  individual  which  is  not  in  accordance  with  the  con- 
ditions of  social  harmony.  Social  development,  then, 
involves  the  harmonious  development  of  the  constituent 
members  of  society.  This  is  one  of  the  elements  of 
truth  contained  in  what  is  called  the  organic  conception 
of  society.  To  speak  of  society  as  if  it  were  a  physical 
organism  is  a  piece  of  mysticism,  if  indeed  it  is  not  quite 
meaningless.  But  the  life  of  society  and  the  life  of  an 
individual  do  resemble  one  another  in  certain  respects, 
and  the  term  '^organic''  is  as  justly  applicable  to  the 
one  as  to  the  other.  For  an  organism  is  a  whole  con- 
sisting of  interdependent  parts.  Each  part  lives  and 
fimctions  and  grows  by  subserving  the  life  of  the  whole. 
It  sustains  the  rest  and  is  sustained  by  them,  and 
through  their  mutual  support  comes  a  common  devel- 
opment. And  this  is  how  we  would  conceive  the  life  of 
man  in  society  in  so  far  as  it  is  harmonious.^ 

1  This  explanation  may  serve  to  meet  an  objection  which  may 
have  occurred  to  you  when  I  laid  down  that  social  development 
implied  the  development  of  the  persons  constituting  society.  You 
might  ask,  does  the  phrase  "persons"  mean  all  of  those  constituting 
the  given  society,  or  some  only  ?  May  it  not  be  shown  that  there  are 
developments,  e.g.  the  rise  of  aristocracy,  which  involve  a  develop- 
ment of  one  class  and  one  kind  of  social  activity,  but  a  suppression 
of  others  ?  The  reply  is  that  such  developments  are  only  partial, 
that  they  imply  arrest,  that  what  there  is  of  social  progress  in  them 
does  involve  a  development  of  individuals,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  so  far  as  the  life  of  any  member  of  society  is  cramped  and  muti- 
lated by  them,  there  is  social  stagnation  and  decay.  Any  such 
development  is  not  fully  harmonious.  Gain  on  one  side  is  set  off 
by  loss  on  another.  The  problem  of  true  social  progress  is  to  find 
the  lines  on  which  development  on  one  side  does  not  retard  de- 
velopment on  another,  but  assists  it. 

Two  other  possible  misunderstandings  may  be  noted  here.  The 
term  "  social  development "  might  be  used  to  cover  mere  quantitative 
growth  in  territory  or  population,  which  would  not  imply  personal 


88       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

(2)  Society,  and  particularly  civilized  society,  is  a 
very  complex  structure.  We  have  not  to  do  with 
one  society,  —  the  political  community  standing  over 
against  a  number  of  individuals  who  are  its  component 
members.  Each  individual  is  a  member  of  many  socie- 
ties. He  is  one  of  a  family ;  he  belongs  to  a  church,  to 
a  corporation,  to  a  trade  union,  to  a  political  party. 
He  is  also  a  citizen  of  his  state,  and  his  state  has  a  place 
in  the  commonwealth  of  states.  In  so  far  as  the  world 
becomes  one,  that  is  to  say,  as  social  relations  arise 
which  interconnect  human  beings  all  the  world  over, 
Humanity  becomes  the  supreme  society,  and  all  smaller 
social  groupings  may  be  conceived  as  constituent  ele- 
ments of  this  supreme  whole.  Now  what  has  been 
said  of  individuals  applies  mutatis  mutandis  to  every 
social  group.  Such  a  group,  for  example  the  family, 
realizes  some  of  the  characteristic  qualities  and  capaci- 
ties of  human  beings,  occupies  a  certain  share  of  their 
affections,  their  energies,  their  intelligence.  Every  such 
group  accordingly  has  its  claim  to  share  in  social 
development,  just  as  the  individual  has  his  claim.  Its 
development,  so  far  as  it  can  be  harmonized  with  the 
other  claims  of  social  life,  is  for  the  good.  Accordingly, 
the  problem  of  the  social  order  is  not  to  realize  the  kind 
of  abstract  unity  which  has  sometimes  been  put  forward 
by  the  makers  of  Utopias  from  Plato  downwards.     The 

development.  But  that  is  not  the  sense  in  which  the  phrase  is  here 
used.  Secondly,  social  development  is  crystallized  in  institutions, 
and  even  jn  material  capital ;  and  it  might  be  suggested  that  such 
growth  does  not  imply  corresponding  enlargement  of  the  individual 
life.  It  may  be  replied  that  so  far  as  this  is  true  there  is  misdirection 
of  energy,  and  the  social  achievement  of  the  past  is  not  making  for 
social  development  in  the  present. 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         89 

ideal  development  of  society  is  not  the  fashioning  of  a 
self-contained  political  state  which  should  supersede! 
the  necessity  for  all  the  spontaneous  associations  of  hu- 
man beings  which  fill  so  large  a  part  of  actual  life.  It  | 
consists  rather  in  the  discovery  of  the  lines  upon  which  ^ 
these  manifold  forms  of  human  association  can  be 
brought  each  to  its  fullest  pitch  of  efficiency  as  a  part  i 
of  a  wider  organization.  Thus  that  form  of  family 
organization  is  the  best  which  gives  the  most  complete 
expression  to  the  love  of  husband  and  wife,  parent  and 
child,  without  cramping  the  development  of  personality 
on  the  one  side  or  impeding  the  development  of  col- 
lective responsibility  on  the  other.  I  may  best  illus- 
trate what  I  mean  by  referring  to  certain  arguments 
based  on  a  quite  legitimate  regard  for  the  institution  of  . 
the  family  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  contro-  ^ 
versies  of  the  day.  Thus,  on  the  one  hand,  measures  for 
securing  equitable  treatment  of  the  wife  and  child  have 
.been,  if  they  are  no  longer,  resisted  on  the  ground  that 
they  undermine  the  authority  of  the  husband  and  father, 
and  therewith  the  solidity  of  the  family  life.  This  was 
to  push  the  ideal  of  the  family  unity  without  regard  to 
the  claims  of  personaUty.  On  the  other  hand,  pubhc 
education  and  public  care  for  children  generally  have 
been,  and  still  are,  frequently  criticized  on  the  ground 
that  they  are  undermining  parental  responsibility.  This 
again  is  to  push  the  ideal  of  the  family  to  the  prejudice 
of  a  legitimate  development  of  a  wider  public  responsi- 
bility. The  method  which  our  principle  suggests  is 
that  the  precise  limits  of  the  sphere  of  parental  responsi- 
bility are  to  be  determined  by  our  experience  of  the  re- 
sults.    We  by  no  means  deny  that  responsibility.    We 


90       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

regard  it  as  a  necessary  consequence  of  an  institution  of 
the  highest  value  to  man.  But  if  we  find  that  it  is  actu- 
ally failing  in  any  given  direction,  as  for  example  it 
failed  in  the  matter  of  education,  to  perform  a  necessary 
social  function,  we  must  not  ignore  the  claims  of  that 
function.  We  must  look  to  other  means  of  fulfilling  it, 
and  must  accordingly  draw  the  line  between  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  parent  and  that  of  the  state  at  a  new  point, 
so  that  as  far  as  possible  the  claims  of  the  parental  tie, 
the  claims  of  the  child,  and  the  claims  of  the  public  con- 
science may  cooperate  and  not  antagonize.  I  do  not 
say  that  the  point  is  easy  to  find,  or  that  all  problems 
are  solved  merely  by  being  stated  in  this  form.  I  say 
that  they  cannot  be  solved  until  they  are  conceived  on 
these  lines ;  that  as  long  as  any  one  duty,  any  one  right, 
or  generally  the  claims  of  any  one  social  relation  are 
regarded  as  absolute  or  are  maintained  without  regard  to 
the  similar  claims  of  other  rights,  other  social  relations, 
nothing  but  a  lop-sided  and  in  the  end  self-destructive 
form  of  social  development  is  possible. 

We  can  once  again  help  ourselves  with  the  organic 
metaphor  without  allowing  it  to  dominate  us.  The 
developed  organism  contains  minor  organisms  within  it. 
The  living  body  is  made  up  of  organs  and  the  organs  of 
cells,  and  the  cell  itself  is  a  living  organism.  Now  the 
life  of  the  body  is  not  perfected  by  suppressing  the  life 
of  the  cells,  but  by  maintaining  it  at  its  highest  point  of 
efficiency.  Nor  is  the  organism  developed  by  reducing 
the  cells  to  a  uniform  type,  but  rather  by  allowing  each 
type  to  vary  on  its  own  lines,  provided  always  that  the 
several  variations  are  in  the  end  mutually  compatible. 
These  things  are  applicable  to  society,  from  the  widest 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         91 

to  the  narrowest  form  thereof.  If  there  is  ever  to  be  a 
world  state,  and  if  such  a  state  is  to  be  reconciled  to  per- 
manent progress,  it  is  to  be  achieved  not  by  the  sup- 
pression of  nationality,  but  by  the  development  of  na- 
tional differentiation ;  not  by  the  suppression  of  political 
freedom,  but  through  the  spontaneous  movement  of  self- 
governing  communities.  Similarly,  if  the  sphere  of  ac- 
tion of  the  state  within  its  own  borders  is  to  expand  as  it 
is  doing  daily  in  my  own  country,  it  must  be,  and  in  fact 
it  is,  not  by  the  suppression  of  other  forms  of  social  co- 
operation nor  by  the  destruction  of  individual  life,  but 
in  such  wise  and  on  such  lines  as  upon  the  whole  liber- 
ates activity  and  provides  lines  of  harmonious  develop- 
ment for  the  constituent  parts.  In  a  word,  the  concep- 
tion of  harmonious  development  applies  not  only  to 
individuals,  but  to  the  various  possible  forms  of  human 
association. 

At  this  stage  it  will  appear  that  starting  from  one  of 
our  assumptions  and  seeking  to  define  it  we  have  been 
led  to  include  our  other  assumptions  along  with  it.  We 
have  conceived  social  development  as  a  development  of  ^ 
individuals  in  harmony.  In  so  doing  we  have  covered 
the  conceptions  (a)  of  a  fuller  vitality  and  (6)  of  the  reali- 
zation of  mental  or  spiritual  capacity,  which  were  two  of 
the  remaining  elements  which  we  postulated  as  going  to 
constitute  the  end  or  good  of  man.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  we  carefully  refrained  from  assuming  that 
any  sort  of  individual  development  was  good.  We 
assumed  only  that  the  good  must  admit  of  some  kind  of 
development,  and  we  are  now  able  to  say  what  kind. 
It  is  that  kind  in  which  all  members  of  a  society  can 
share.    It  is  such  that  its  pursuit  by  one,  far  from  hinder- 


92       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

ing,  positively  promotes  its  pursuit  by  another.  It  is  i 
the  kind  of  development,  that  is,  which  can  be  pursued] 
by  many  in  harmony.  This  does  not  mean  that  there 
is  only  one  typ^  of  good  citizen.  The  kind  of  develop- 
ment which  is  social  is  a  very  wide  genus,  admitting  of 
numerous  and  highly  contrasted  specific  differences,  and, 
as  we  know,  many  of  the  most  important  functions  of  a 
man  depend  not  on  his  Ukeness  to  others,  but  on  his  indi- 
viduality. Conversely  it  is  an  important  part  of  the  » 
development  of  social  harmony  that  it  comes  to  make 
use  of  wider  and  more  complex  divergencies  of  individ- 
uals. Of  these  we  need  not  speak  further  for  the  mo- 
ment. We  remark  only  that  the  idea  of  social  develop- 
ment covers  that  of  individual  development  in  the  only 
sense  in  which  this  idea  can  be  applied  to  a  plurality  of 
individuals  whose  lives  affect  one  another.  Lastly, 
with  the  development  of  the  individual  conceived  as  a  ^ 
center  of  social  relations,  the  idea  of  happiness  is,  I 
imagine,  involved.  The  full  discussion  of  this  question 
would  take  us  far  afield.  I  must  leave  it  to  you  to  con- 
sider whether  either  happiness  or  misery  is  to  be  found 
elsewhere  in  those  things  which  make  or  mar  the  develop- 
ment of  personality,  in  itself,  in  its  relations  to  others, 
or  in  its  capacity  as  a  part  which  has  a  function  to 
perform  in  a  life  infinitely  greater  than  its  own. 

Our  assumptions  it  will  be  seen  tend  to  come  down 
to  one.  In  other  words  approaching  the  problem  of 
the  good  or  the  desirable  from  several  sides  and 
roughly  formulating  several  elements  that  appear  to 
express  a  part  of  its  meaning  we  find  on  analysis  that 
these  several  conceptions  lead  up  to  a  center^  This 
central  conception  is  the  idea  of  a  harmony  in  the 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         93 

manifold  developments  of  life.  Our  assumption  then 
is  that  the  good  lies  in  this  direction,  and  progress 
will  consist  accordingly  in  the  movement  by  which 
such  harmony  may  be  realized. 

Now  this  principle  of  harmony  has  many  applica- 
tions which  cannot  be  drawn  out  here.  There  is  a 
harmony  within  the  life  of  the  individual,  and  a 
harmony  of  man  with  his  physical  environment  as 
well  as  the  harmony  of  man  in  society.  All  these  are 
parts  of  a  whole,  and  all  are  elements  in  the  life  that 
may  be  called  good  or  desirable.  But  in  all  its  mean- 
ings harmony,  as  already  hinted,  is  something  which 
does  not  come  of  itself,  but  is  achieved  in  greater  or 
less  degree  by  effort,  that  is  to  say,  by  intelligence 
and  will.  Hence  the  conditions  of  harmony  rest  on 
the  nature  of  mind,  and  to  understand  the  growth  of 
harmony  we  must  follow  up  the  growth  of  mind.  The 
study  of  this  growth  belongs  in  a  sense  to  psychology, 
but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  highest  forms  of 
mental  activity,  from  the  most  elementary  general  ideas 
upward,  are  not  merely  individual,  but  social  products. 

All  higher  psychology  is  in  a  sense  social  psychology. 
Thus  our  ideas  from  a  very  early  stage  clothe  themselves 
in  language,  and  language  is  a  social  product.  Now  our 
ideas  may  be  suggested  in  the  first  instance  by  personal 
experience,  and  I  do  not  deny  that  they  may  precede 
and  do  continually  outstrip  the  means  of  expression. 
None  the  less,  the  form  which  they  take  is  largely  deter- 
mined by  the  means  of  expression  which  enable  us  to 
fix,  utilize,  and  build  with  one  while  another  remains 
a  vague  suggestion,  of  which  perhaps  we  finally  lose 
hold.    It  is  the  common  experience  wherein  we  find 


94       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION,  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

the  thoughts  of  others  responduxg  to  our  own  that  most 
readily  acquires  substantive  shape  and  form.  More- 
over, the  greater  part  of  each  man's  personal  experience 
is  made  up  out  of  his  interaction  with  others  in  the  mul- 
tifarious relations  of  Ufe,  and  these  relations,  from  the 
earliest  known  phases  of  human  society,  are  controlled 
by  customs  which  arise  out  of  the  needs  of  social  life 
and  are  maintained  by  the  social  tradition.  Through 
this  tradition  society  exerts  a  continuous  control  over 
the  individual,  of  which  avowed  and  obvious  coercion  is 
the  least  important  element.  The  vital  factor  is  that 
from  infancy  upwards  the  social  milieu  into  which  he  is 
born  interpenetrates  his  thought  and  will,  and  turns  his 
individuality  into  a  creation  of  the  time  and  place  of  his 
life.  Even  the  strongest  individualities  do  not,  strictly 
speaking,  resist  this  process.  They  react  to  it  more 
powerfully  than  others,  so  as  to  produce  some  marked 
divergence  from  the  ordinary  type.  Very  often  the  di- 
vergence consists  in  this,  that  the  strong  individual  is 
just  the  typical  man  of  his  time  carried  to  a  higher  power. 
Otherwise  he  may  be  in  various  degrees  original,  pecul- 
iar, perhaps  eccentric,  but  even  in  his  eccentricity 
he  will  still  exhibit  the  joint  resultant  of  social  and 
individual  forces. 
/  It  is  thus  easy  to  understand  that  though  there  is  no 
thought  except  in  the  mind  of  an  individual  thinker,  yet 
the  thought  of  any  generation,  and  indeed  of  each  indi- 
vidual in  the  generation,  is  a  social  product.  But  we 
must  go  further  than  this.  The  sum  of  thought  in  exist- 
ence at  any  time  is  something  more  than  any  thought 
that  exists  in  the  head  of  any  individual;  it  is  some- 
thing to  which  many  minds  contribute,  and  which  yet 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         95 

may  be  for  many  purposes  a  real  unity.  Consider  an 
advanced  complex  science.  No  one  thinks  the  whole  of 
such  a  science  at  any  moment.  Perhaps  no  one  lives 
who  is  master  of  it  all.  Yet  the  whole  range  of  truth 
that  the  science  has  elaborated  is  available  for  social 
or  individual  uses.  It  is  recorded  in  books.  It  is,  so  to 
say,  incorporated  in  instruments  and  laboratories,  where- 
by the  results  worked  out  by  one  man  for  one  purpose 
are  available  by  another  man  for  another  purpose.  The 
,  science  is  more  than  the  living  knowledge  of  any  indi- 
\  vidual.  It  is  social  knowledge  or  social  thought,  not  in 
the  sense  that  it  exists  in  the  mind  of  a  mystical  social 
unit,  nor  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  common  property  of 
all  men,  which  it  certainly  is  not,  but  in  the  sense  that  it 
is  the  product  of  many  minds  working  in  conscious  or  J 
unconscious  cooperation,  that  it  forms  a  part  of  the  per-  * 
manent  social  tradition  going  constantly  to  shape  the 
thought  and  direct  the  efforts  of  fresh  generations  of 
learners,  —  that,  in  a  word,  it  has  all  the  permanency  and 
(potency  which  the  individual  has  not.  We  might  easily 
apply  the  same  reasoning  to  other  departments  of 
thought,  to  philosophy,  to  religion,  to  the  literary  and 
imaginative  representation  of  life,  and  to  the  common 
sense  knowledge  that  at  once  expresses  and  helps  to 
form  the  experience  of  ordinary  men  in  ordinary  rela- 
tions. The  thought  of  any  society  at  any  time  is  a  social 
thought.  This  social  thought  forms  the  point  of  depar- 
ture for  individuals  who  are  brought  up  in  it,  perhaps 
go  beyond  it  and  contribute  something  fresh  of  their 
own,  perhaps  fail  fully  to  assimilate  and  fall  short  of  it. 
As  there  is  a  social  thought,  so  there  is  a  social  will. 
Again,  that  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  there  exist 


96       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

objects  common  to  all  or  to  the  great  majority  of  the 
members  of  any  community.  There  may  be  such  ob- 
jects, —  for  example,  the  successful  pursuit  of  a  war  in 
which  the  pride  of  a  nation  is  involved,  —  and  in  that 
case  the  social  will  has  a  very  easily  intelligible  meaning 
and  a  simple  definable  object.  But  the  social  will  is 
more  permanent  and  pervasive  than  this.  It  covers  all 
those  modes  of  action  that  the  existing  constitution  of 
society  dictates,  all  the  institutions  that  it  maintains, 
all  the  customs  that  it  prescribes.  Many  of  these,  par- 
ticularly in  the  lower  forms  of  society,  may  never  be 
thought  out,  may  never  be  so  much  as  examined  or  con- 
sidered by  any  thinking  individual  in  their  bearing  on 
the  actual  hfe  of  society.  But  to  say  this  is  merely  to 
emphasize  their  social  as  opposed  to  their  personal  gen- 
esis. Customs  may  and  do  arise,  for  example,  purely 
from  the  action  of  individuals,  each  seeking  ends  of  his 
own,  and  as  they  are  imitated  and  pass  with  the  approval 
or  at  least  without  the  disapproval  of  others,  they  rapidly 
crystallize  and  become  recognized  modes  in  which  a  man 
may  and  should  comport  himself  under  given  circum- 
stances. Thus  the  forces  governing  action  are  social,  not 
necessarily  in  the  sense  that  they  are  governed  by  a 
broad  conception  of  social  ends,  but  in  the  sense  that  they 
are  the  products  of  the  social  connection  between  man 
and  man. 

What  has  been  said  may  suffice  to  show  that  when  we 
speak  of  social  thought,  social  will,  or  more  generally 
of  social  mind,  we  neither  imply  a  mystical  psychic  unity 
nor  a  fully  achieved  consciousness  of  the  social  life  on 
the  part  of  the  component  members  of  society.  Such  a 
consciousness  is  in  fact  a  developed  product  of  the  social 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         97 

mind,  but  its  presence  is  not  to  be  assumed  wherever 
the  term  ^'social  mind "  is  used.  This  term  is  simply  an 
expression  for  the  mass  of  ideas  operative  in  a  society, 
communicable  from  man  to  man,  and  serving  to  direct 
the  thoughts  and  actions  of  individuals.  The  kind  of 
unity  which  attaches  to  the  social  mind  is  not  definable 
in  general  terms.  It  varies  from  case  to  case.  In  the 
more  complex  societies  there  are  for  example  many  in- 
stitutions, each  with  its  distinct  ethos,  and  the  existence 
of  this  ethos  means  that  the  institution  lays  a  plastic 
hand  on  all  who  enter  it,  and  with  greater  or  less  thor- 
oughness moulds  their  life  and  actions.  As  an  individual 
may  and  probably  does  belong  to  more  than  one  institu- 
tion, he  is  subject  to  influences  of  this  kind  from  more 
than  one  quarter.  There  is  thus  in  a  sense  more  than 
one  social  mind  that  claims  him,  and  this  alone  will 
suffice  to  warn  us  against  the  supposition  that  the  social 
mind  is  necessarily  something  common,  for  example, 
to  all  members  of  the  same  poUtical  community.^  Such 
a  community  may  indeed,  if  highly  developed,  possess  a 
very  clear  unity  of  its  own,  and  enjoy  a  very  distinct 
order  of  ideas,  marking  out  the  behavior  of  its  members 
in  no  uncertain  fashion.  But  if  highly  developed  it 
probably  is  the  seat  of  many  constituent  institutions, 
each  with  a  corresponding  ethos,  tradition,  or  mind  of 
its  own,  operating  on  its  own  members  in  similar  fashion. 
By  the  social  mind,  then,  we  mean  not  necessarily  a  unity 
pervading  any  given  society  as  a  whole,  but  a  tissue  of 

^  It  is  for  this  reason  that  I  prefer  the  term  "  social  "  to  the  term 
."general."  The  "general  will"  is  an  entity  not  always  to  be  dis- 
covered, and  the  use  of  the  term  leads  to  the  most  inhuman 
torture  of  evidence  to  prove  that  there  is  a  generality  of  will  where 
there  is  none. 


98       SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

operative  psychological  forces  which  in  their  higher  de- 
velopments crystallize  into  unity  within  unity,  and  into 
organism  operating  upon  organism.  We  mean  some- 
thing essentially  of  psychological  character  that  arises 
from  the  operations  of  masses  of  men,  and  molds  and  is 
in  turn  remolded  by  the  operation  of  masses  of  men  ; 
s^^  which  has  no  existence  except  in  the  minds  of  men,  and 
yet  is  never  fully  realized  in  the  mind  of  any  one  man  ; 
which  depends  on  the  social  relations  between  man  and 
man,  but  takes  full  cognizance  of  the  relation  only  in  the 
higher  stages  of  its  development. 

As  the  function  of  the  individual  mind  is  to  organize 
the  life  of  the  individual,  so  the  function  of  the  social 
mind  is  to  organize  the  life  of  society,  to  control  the 
physical  environment,  and  to  regulate  the  relations  of 
members  of  the  community  to  one  another  and  of  the 
community  as  a  whole  to  other  communities.  This 
function  is  of  course  more  adequately  performed  in 
proportion  as  the  social  mind  develops.  Now  the  de- 
velopment of  mind  in  general  consists  partly  in  increase 
of  width  or  scope.  The  developed  mind  has  a  wider 
reach.  Its  grasp  extends  further  over  the  future  and  the 
past.  Its  insight  into  reality  probes  deeper,  and  in  con- 
sequence its  practical  control  of  life  is  greater.  Secondly, 
the  development  of  mind  lies  in  increased  clearness, 
articulateness,  connectedness  of  perception  and  of 
thought.  It  takes  a  more  penetrating  and  concrete,  and 
at  the  same  time  a  more  rational  and  connected  view. 
Lastly,  and  this  has  special  application  to  the  social 
mind,  the  more  developed  mind  is  more  completely  and 
consciously  a  unity.  In  the  case  of  the  individual,  indeed, 
a  unity  may  always  be  predicated  by  another  person, 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  SOCIAL  MIND         99 

even  if  it  be  not  conscious.  An  animal  or  a  child  may, 
for  all  we  know,  have  no  thought  of  yesterday  or  to- 
morrow, but  we  onlookers  are  aware  that  it  is  one  and 
the  same  being  throughout.  In  the  case  of  the  social 
mind,  on  the  other  hand,  the  consciousness  of  unity 
profoundly  affects  the  unity  itself.  One  is  tempted  to 
say  that  it  actually  brings  it  to  birth.  This,  however, 
would  not  be  true  in  all  cases,  for  the  minds  of  men  who 
are  brought  into  contact  affect  one  another,  and  may 
give  to  any  society  a  certain  oneness,  marking  it  out 
from  others,  without  perhaps  any  consciousness  of  the 
relation.  Moreover,  when  a  new  and  wider  unity 
is  recognized,  it  is  recognized  as  something  already 
existing,  as  a  relation  which  was  present  and  was  opera- 
tive somehow  while  yet  unknown.  But  however  this 
be,  any  developed  unity  in  the  social  mind  rests  on  a 
consciousness,  first  of  some  special  relation  of  each  indi- 
vidual constituting  it  to  his  fellow  members,  and  sec- 
ondly of  the  group,  society,  institution  itself  as  a  whole. 
In  its  more  concrete  deivelopments  then  the  social  mind 
has  a  certain  measure  of  conscious  unity  as  its  basis,  and 
both  the  solidity  and  the  extent  of  this  conscious  unity 
are  of  importance  in  determining  its  power;  solidity 
because  this  determines  the  effectiveness  of  social  co- 
operation within  its  limits;  extent  because  this  deter- 
mines the  limits  themselves.  A  rude  society,  a  clan  of 
warlike  mountaineers,  for  instance,  may  be  a  very  well- 
knit  unity,  conscious  and  proud  of  its  clan  life,  but 
making  little  progress  because  it  is  at  war  with  all  its 
neighbors.  An  aggregation  of  such  clans  presents  no 
unity,  but  only  a  scene  of  anarchy.  Supposing  them 
reduced  to  order  by  the  strong  hand  of  some  pax 


100     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

Romana  or  pax  Britannica,  there  will  be  both  loss  and 
gain  —  gain  in  the  widening  of  the  social  unit,  loss  in  the 
vigor  of  social  life.  There  will  be  some  elements  of  a 
social  relation  over  the  whole  aggregation,  but  it  will 
be  at  least  in  the  beginning  a  less  lively  union,  an  exter- 
nal order  rather  than  the  old  hearty  cooperation.  Such 
compensating  movements  of  gain  and  loss  run  right 
through  the  history  of  social  development. 

Now  if  we  were  to  go  at  all  closely  into  the  nature  of 
the  unities  which  the  social  mind  builds  up,  if  in  particu- 
lar we  should  inquire  how  they  are  to  be  reconciled  with 
the  independent  existence  of  the  individual  mind,  and 
how  one  unity  can  overlap  another,  we  should  find  our- 
selves repeating  in  essentials  what  has  already  been  said 
of  the  conception  of  harmony.  We  should  find  that  the 
development  of  the  individual  conditions  and  is  condi- 
tioned by  every  social  group  to  which  he  belongs,  and 
we  should  find  that  of  the  groups  in  turn  the  same  thing 
holds.  The  many  groups  are  necessarily  related,  and 
their  relations,  though  giving  rise  at  first  sight  to  diver- 
gent impulses,  need  not  lead  to  conflict.  They  may  be 
subordinate  to  a  higher  unity,  and  this  in  fact  is  the  line 
of  progress.  Thus  the  development  of  the  social  mind  is 
the  development  of  social  harmony  expressed  in  psycho- 
logical terms.  But  the  psychological  conception  takes 
us  further.  It  covers  not  only  the  harmonious  develop- 
ment, which  is  the  end,  but  the  control  of  conditions, 
which  is  the  means  to  that  end.  Harmonious  develop- 
ment is  not  reached  by  instinct,  nor  does  it  proceed  of 
itself.  For  stable  and  assured  progress  it  requires  all 
the  powers  of  the  human  mind,  and  more  powers  than 
have  yet  been  brought  to  bear.     The  harmony  of  life 


SOCIAL  HARMONY  AND  THE  S06lAL  MINi)'"' 'I'Ol    ' 

rests  on  the  control  of  conditions  by  the  social  mind. 
This  control  is  in  part  self-control  —  the  control  which 
by  means  of  ethical  conceptions  the  members  of  society 
exercise  over  themselves  and  one  another  —  over  social 
relations.  It  is  in  part  the  control  of  other  things, 
such,  for  example,  as  the  physical"  conditions  of  health. 
The  one  may  be  regarded  as  itself  a  part  of  the  harmony 
which  we  take  as  the  end,  the  other  as  a  necessary  con- 
dition or  means  to  that  end. 

Thus  the  growth  of  the  social  mind  is  a  more  complete 
measure  of  progress  than  the  conception  of  harmony 
itself.  It  takes  us  nearer  to  the  essence  of  the  forces  at 
work,  which  are  psychological,  and  it  enables  us  to  view 
not  only  results,  but  conditions,  which  are  results  in  the 
making.  We  may  therefore  take  the  growth  of  social 
mind  and  its  control  over  the  conditions  of  life  as 
the  measure  of  progress,  and  we  shall  have  to  ask  how 
far  progress  so  conceived  is  reaUzed  in  the  history  of 
humanity. 


CHAPTER  V 

Social  Morphology 

We  have  now  arrived  at  a  rough  definition  of  the 
nature  and  general  conditions  of  progress,  and  our  next 
step  is  to  compare  it  with  the  ascertained  facts  of  social 
evolution  itself.  Conceiving  social  evolution  as  the 
growth,  maintenance,  or  decay  of  a  fabric  of  human 
achievement  accomplishing  itself  through  the  medium 
of  what  we  call  cumulative  tradition,  we  have  to  ask 
what  the  general  tendency  of  these  changes  is,  and 
whether  they  conform  to  our  conception  of  progress. 
Is  there  any  truth  in  the  common  optimistic  saying  that 
progress  is  the  law  of  social  life,  or  is  there  more  to  be 
said  for  the  pessimistic  view  that  in  all  the  whirl  of 
change  there  are  many  ups  and  downs,  but  no  net  gain  as 
judged  by  those  human  values  in  terms  of  which  genuine 
progress  is  to  be  defined  ?  Or  is  there  discernible  among 
the  devious  movements  of  social  evolution  some  one 
tendency  which  may  be  regarded  as  progressive,  and  is 
this  tendency  marked  with  sufficient  emphasis  and  dis- 
tinctness to  justify  the  hope  of  success  for  further  social 
effort  ?  If  so,  have  any  new  conditions  come  into  play 
which  render  the  prospect  before  such  effort  more 
hopeful  or  the  reverse?  Before  we  can  answer  these 
questions  adequately,  we  must  cast  a  glance  at  the 
methods  which  the  study  of  social  life  has  at  its  disposal, 
and  the  objects  which  it  can  reasonably  expect  to  attain. 

102 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  103 

In  ordinary  phrase,  its  aim  is  supposed  to  be  the  discov- 
ery of  the  laws  of  social  evolution.  But  this  expression 
contains  several  ambiguities.  The  term  '4aw,"  always 
a  somewhat  unfortunate  metaphor  in  the  philosophy  of 
science,  is  perhaps  nowhere  so  replete  with  pitfalls  as 
in  its  application  to  sociology*.  Without  seeking  to  ex- 
haust its  ambiguities,  I  must  lay  stress  on  one  distinc- 
tion. A  ^4aw"  in  science  seems  properly  to  imply  a 
connection  which  is  necessary  and  universal.  It  states 
the  conditions  from  which  certain  consequences  uni- 
formly flow.  It  is,  in  a  word,  a  generalization.  So  if 
there  is  any  general  law  of  evolution,  it  should  be  one 
which  should  tell  us  the  conditions  under  which  evolu- 
tion occurs,  and  enable  us  to  infer  that  when  these 
conditions  are  given  one  phase  of  growth  will  be  followed 
by  another  and  another  in  a  determinate  order.  It 
should  help  us  to  generalize  or  to  predict.  Now  I  do 
not  wish  to  raise  here  the  difficult  question  how  far 
generalization  and  prediction  are  attainable  in  sociology. 
I  would  remark  only  that  very  often  when  a  law  of  evo- 
lution is  spoken  of,  particularly  in  sociology,  it  would 
seem  that  what  is  actually  ascertained  is  something  of  a 
different  order.  It  is  not  a  question  of  generalization, 
but  of  descriptive  synthesis.  A  series  of  changes  is 
passed  in  review  and  considered  as  a  whole.  So  con- 
sidered it  presents  a  certain  character,  exhibits  a  certain 
trend.  This  trend  is  formulated,  and  the  formula  is 
described  as  the  law  of  the  series.  But  the  conditions 
of  the  process  are  not  ascertained,  nor  is  it  proved  that 
the  same  series  of  changes  would,  if  at  once  begun  some- 
where else,  recur  in  the  same  order.  There  is  no  basis  of 
generalization  or  of  prediction. 


104     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

Now  it  is  important  to  recognize  that  such  description 
is  a  legitimate,  and  may  be  a  very  important  and  a  very 
difficult,  object  of  investigation.  Only  it  is  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  generalization  with  which  it  is  often 
loosely  confounded.  It  has  its  application  not  only  in 
sociology,  but  in  the  field  of  organic  life.  In  biological 
science  we  may  find  an  example  in  the  life  history  of  an 
animal  or  plant  from  the  first  germ  of  life  to  adult 
growth,  and  thence  to  decay  and  death.  When  we 
learn,  for  example,  that  a  given  animal  at  a  certain  stage 
has  gills  and  a  tail  and  lives  under  the  water,  while  later 
on  it  sheds  its  tail  and  gills,  develops  lungs  and  four  legs 
and  hops  about  on  the  ground,  we  have  a  rough  sketch 
of  the  development  of  the  common  frog,  which  the  natu- 
ral history  of  that  species  will  fill  in  as  fully  as  may  be 
V  desired.  This,  as  it  stands,  is  the  history  of  a  process 
Tather  than  the  establishment  of  a  law.  It  is  true  that 
this  particular  history  can  be  generalized,  —  what  is 
true  of  one  animal  being  true  of  a  whole  species  under 
normal  circumstances,  —  but  the  method  is  equally  ap- 
plicable if  only  one  individual  process  be  in  question. 
Thus  we  might  describe,  so  far  as  the  geological  record 
allows  us,  the  life  history  of  a  whole  species  considered 
as  a  single  totality.  We  might  remark  its  rare  appear- 
ance at  one  epoch,  its  growth  in  subsequent  times,  and 
its  gradual  extinction,  and  we  might  perhaps  find  certain 
varieties  of  form  accompanying  this  growth  and  decay. 
So  again  in  human  history  we  can  sketch  an  outline  of 
the  rise  and  fall  of  an  ancient  state,  and  here  again  we 
are  giving  a  descriptive  account  of  the  broad  character 
of  a  certain  evolution,  of  a  process  which  has  a  certain 
unity  of  its  own  and  which  appears  only  in  a  single 
instance. 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  105 

In  none  of  these  cases  is  it  accurate  to  speak  of  a  law 
of  evolution  as  being  the  end  and  object  of  our  inquiry. 
Our  purpose  is  rather  to  grasp  a  certain  development 
as  a  whole ;  to  measure  the  distance  traversed  from  the 
first  phase  to  the  last ;  to  bring,  the  facts  together  in  a 
synthesis ;  to  be  able,  if  we  may  so  put  it,  to  say  what  the 
whole  amounts  to.  Such  a  synthesis  yields  not  the  law 
of  evolution  in  general,  but  rather  the  trend  or  orbit  of 
some  particular  evolution.  We  may  make  the  point 
clear  by  [considering  the  method  of  determining  an  orbit 
in  the  most  literal  sense  of  that  term.  We  wish  to  as- 
certain the  path  along  which  a  body  moves.  We  may 
begin  empirically  by  determining  a  number  of  positions 
which  the  body  occupies  in  succession.  The  curve 
which  it  describes  may  then  be  ascertained  by  joining 
up  these  points.  The  result  is  to  coordinate  the  data 
and  enable  us  to  judge  the  direction  and  extent  of  the 
movement.  But  so  far  the  term  ^' law  "is  inappropri- 
ate, since  no  universal  and  necessary  relation  of  terms 
Jias  been  ascertained.  We  cannot  be  sure  that  the  body 
will  continue,  beyond  the  points  observed,  to  move  in  the 
same  curve.  What  we  have  is  just  an  accurate  record 
of  the  magnitude  and  direction  of  the  course  which  it 
has  actually  taken.  But  the  motion  of  a  body  may  also 
be  determined  in  another  way.  It  may  be  deduced  from 
certain  conditions  to  which  it  is  known  to  be  subject. 
Its  curve  will  then  be  determined,  as  the  mathematician 
will  tell  us,  by  a  certain  relation  expressible  in  an  equa- 
tion between  an  ordinate  and  an  abscissa,  two  governing 
conditions  applying  to  every  successive  point  along  the 
length  of  the  curve  and  by  the  fixed  proportion  between 
them  governing  its  shape.     The  equation  which  ex- 


106     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

presses  this  proportion,  then,  is,  in  strictness,  the  law  of 
the  curve,  and  knowing  this  equation  we  can  predict  the 
movement  of  the  body  and  the  position  which  it  will 
occupy  at  any  moment.  The  curve  as  determined 
by  the  first  method  is  a  descriptive  synthesis ;  as  deter- 
mined by  the  second,  it  is  a  true  law.  I  need  hardly 
add  that  in  the  order  of  discovery  the  first  method  may 
lead  up  to  the  second,  the  synthesis  of  empirical  data 
preparing  the  way  for  analysis  of  underlying  conditions. 
The  first  of  these  cases  corresponds  in  our  inquiry  to  the 
synthesis  which  enables  us  to  formulate  the  historic 
movement  of  society ;  the  second  to  the  generalization 
which  should  assign  the  forces  determining  this  move- 
ment, and  therefore  enable  us  to  predict  the  future 
or  infer  the  character  of  the  unrecorded  past.  And  it  is 
again  possible  that  from  one  result  we  might  proceed  to 
the  other.  For  if  we  could  resolve  the  life  history  of  a 
frog  or  of  an  organic  species,  or  the  history  of  a  state  or 
of  a  civilization,  into  certain  permanent  factors  corre- 
lated permanently  in  a  definite  manner,  and  could  show 
that  the  result  of  this  correlation  was  to  produce  the 
process  which  we  find,  we  should  then  have  not  only  the 
actual  development  as  an  historical  fact,  but  a  law  of 
development.  And  it  is  the  law  of  evolution  in  this 
sense,  a  general  law,  that  is  to  say,  dominating  the 
whole  evolutionary  process,  which  constitutes  the  strict 
meaning  of  the  term.  To  discover  such  a  law  or 
laws,  we  should  have  not  only  to  know  where  the  evo- 
lutionary process  begins  and  in  what  it  ends,  but  we 
should  have  to  ascertain  the  factors  underlying  it 
throughout  and  by  their  interaction  producing  the 
concrete  result. 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  107 

The  distinction  may  be  illustrated  once  again  from  the 
theory  of  biological  evolution.  When  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer  conceives  of  evolution  as  a  process  at  once 
towards  higher  integration  and  greater  differentiation, 
he  is  giving  a  descriptive  formula  applicable  to  the  evo- 
lutionary process  as  a  whole.  When,  in  relation  to  the 
organic  world,  Darwin  arrives  at  the  conception  of  the 
struggle  for  existence,  the  laws  of  heredity  and  natural 
selection,  as  causes  determining  the  growth  of  species, 
he  is  giving  us  a  theory  of  the  permanent  conditions  un- 
derlying this  development.  Mr.  Spencer's  formula  is, 
descriptive;  Darwin's  is  causational.  Both  formulae 
have  their  value.  To  describe  the  whole  in  the  sense  of 
forming  a  synthesis  in  which  all  its  parts  should  be  seen 
in  their  various  places  would  be  a  worthy  object  of  scien- 
tific investigation,  even  if  we  should  fail  to  ascertain  the 
conditions  upon  which  development  depends,  while  to 
discover  these  conditions  would  be  a  further  step. 

Thus  there  are  two  distinct  objects  which  the  student 
of  social  evolution  may  set  before  himself.  First  of  all  he 
may  endeavor  to  grasp  the  broad  trend  of  social  evolu- 
tioja ;  that  is  to  say,  he  may  attempt  a  synthesis  of  its 
successive  phases,  and  here  he  might  conceivably  take 
the  evolution  of  a  single  society,  or  of  a  type  of  civiliza^ 
tion,  or  finally,  of  the  whole  of  humanity  for  his  subject.,' 
Provided  that  the  process  be  grasped  as  a  connected 
whole  and  that  any  illuminating  description  can  be  given 
of  its  trend  and  tendency,  provided  that  he  can  find  in  it, 
as  it  were,  any  clear  hint  of  definiteness  of  direction,  the 
object  will  be  a  perfectly  legitimate  one  for  scientific 
endeavor.  Secondly,  he  may  seek  to  do  what  Darwin 
did  with  biology,  and  to  discover  not  only  the  actual 


108     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND   POLITICAL  THEORY 

movement  of  society,  but  the  permanent  conditions 
upon  which  such  movement  depends.  The  first  in- 
quiry may,  of  course,  throw  fight  on  the  second.  From 
our  knowledge  of  the  path  on  which  evolution  has  moved 
we  may  naturally  hope  to  obtain  light  on  the  forces 
which  have  moved  it.  But  this,  we  shall  find,  will  raise 
further  and  more  difficult  questions,  and  the  first  object 
in  comparative  sociology  must  be  to  effect  the  synthesis 
which  will  give  us  not  the  law  but  the  path  or  trend. 
Even  this  we  shall  find  to  be  a  problem  of  great  com- 
plexity and  only  to  be  approached  by  severely  limiting 
the  scope  of  inquiry. 

It  may  be  asked  in  what  respect  a  descriptive  formula 
\of  social  evolution  would  differ  from  a  sufficiently  com- 
prehensive social  history.  Suppose  that  we  could  take 
all  sides  of  a  nation's  life,  its  politics  and  religion,  its 
literature  and  art,  its  science  and  philosophy,  its  indus- 
try and  commerce,  and  write  their  history  in  full,  should 
we  not  have  a  final  account  of  the  actual  facts  of  its  so- 
cial evolution,  and  would  anything  remain  but  to  pass 
at  once  if  we  could  to  the  causes  connecting  the  differ- 
ent phases  of  the  process  ?  Would  any  formula  of  syn- 
thesis be  necessary  as  an  intermediate  step  ?  Well,  in 
the  first  place  it  will  readily  be  seen  that  the  attempt 
to  grasp  this  many-sided  development  as  a  whole,  as 
forming  one  social  evolution,  carries  us  outside  the  con- 
ception of  history  as  a  narrative.  We  find  ourselves 
at  once  dealing  not  with  one  history  but  with  many. 
The  history  of  science  is  one  thing,  that  of  literature  an- 
other, and  in  a  time  like  ours  either  of  these  is  so  rich 
and  diversified  in  material  that  it  would  naturally  break 
up  into  many  component  parts,  each  of  which  as  a  nar- 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  109 

rative  would  be  separately  pursued.  Now  if  these  dif-  f^ 
ferent  strands  are  somehow  to  be  woven  together  so 
that  we  may  form  some  conception  of  the  rope  which 
they  constitute,  quite  another  kind  of  intellectual  effort 
is  needed.  We  shall  have  to  find,  as  it  were,  some  com-^ 
mon  denominator  for  our  different  results.  We  shall 
have  to  analyze  our  data,  to  find  the  points  at  which  the 
different  lines  of  development  impinge  on  one  another, 
and  so  discover  in  the  end  how  far  they  form  a  com- 
bined movement.  The  statement  of  this  combined 
movement  is  the  formula  of  synthesis  which  we  require.  ^ 

A  brief  illustration  may  make  my  meaning  clear. 
The  history  of  science  in  the  last  century  and  a  half  has 
been  of  vast  importance  in  the  general  evolution  of 
society.  But  the  student  of  society  does  not  need  to 
know,  say,  the  history  of  the  successive  analyses  and 
syntheses  by  which  organic  chemistry  has  been  built  up. 
What  he  does  want  to  know  is,  for  example,  the  way  in 
which  the  progress  of  science  has  affected  our  view  of  the 
world,  how  it  has  recast  the  forms  of  industry,  how  it 
has  reacted  on  literature  and  art,  how  it  has  affected 
religion  and  social  theory.  Again  he  is  interested  in  the 
causes  affecting  the  growth  of  science  itself,  the  effects 
of  political  and  social  liberty,  the  influence  of  theological 
prepossessions,  or  of  the  prevailing  system  of  education. 
In  a  word,  he  concerns  himself  with  the  place  of  science 
in  social  life,  whether  as  affected  by  other  agencies  or 
affecting  them.  So  regarded,  of  course,  some  of  the 
actual  achievements  of  science  will  interest  him.  Not 
only  must  he  recognize  the  important  social  bearing  of 
theories  like  those  of  organic  evolution  and  therefore 
take  some  account  of  the  preliminary  scientific  work 


110     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

which  makes  them  possible,  but  he  must  also  note  as  of 
transcendent  interest  the  light  which  scientific  progress 
throws,  both  by  its  success  and  by  its  limitations,  on  the 
power  of  man  over  nature.  He  must,  as  it  were,  assess 
the  work  of  science  as  one  form  of  human  achievement, 
and  one  product  of  the  social  mind. 

As  with  science,  so  with  other  developments  of  social 
activity.  The  detailed  history  of  each  affords  the  data 
\  for  the  sociologist.  His  special  work  is  to  correlate  the 
results. 

Again,  the  formula  of  synthesis  is  only  applicable 
when  the  process  which  it  is  to  describe  forms  a  unitj^ 
But  to  find  this  unity  in  social  evolution  is  no  simple 
matter.  In  the  life  of  society  we  are  dealing  prima  Jade 
not  with  one  evolution  but  with  many.  If,  to  begin 
with,  we  confine  ourselves  to  one  nation  and  try  to  write 
its  social  history,  we  find  two  things.  First,  as  already 
seen,  the  history  tends  to  break  itself  up  into  separate 
narratives.  The  religious  history  of  England,  say,  is 
something  distinct  from  its  scientific,  or  political,  or 
industrial  history.  The  different  evolutions  affect  and 
interfere  with  one  another,  but  yet  they  have  a  certain 
independence.  On  the  other  hand,  the  religious  evolu- 
tion of  England  could  not  be  understood  without  refer- 
ence to  that  of  other  countries.  Its  relation  to  conti- 
nental movements  of  thought  is  not  a  whit  less  intimate 
than  its  relation  to  the  remaining  phases  of  social  evolu- 
tion in  the  country  itself.  Thus,  the  social  evolution  of 
a  country  is  not  an  independent  unity  standing  by  itself, 
—  it  is  a  part  of  the  wider  evolution  of  civilization. 

But  here  a  formidable  difficulty  arises.  When  social 
evolution  is  taken  in  this  wider  sense  we  may  well  ask 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  111 

whether  any  single  formula  can  be  applicable  to  it. 
When  we  think  of  the  divergence,  I  do  not  say  between 
different  European  nations,  but  between  the  whole  trend 
of  Eastern  and  Western  civilization,  when  we  consider 
the  rise  and  fall  of  earlier  civilizations,  when  we  consider 
that  the  existing  structure  of  savage  and  barbaric  society 
is  itself  the  product  of  an  evolution  that  if  slower  in  its 
rate  of  change  has  been  at  work  as  many  centuries  as  our 
own,  can  we  say  that  there  is  any  one  single  direction 
which  social  evolution  must  take  ?  Must  we  not  rather 
admit  many  possible  lines  of  deviation  from  the  primi-  f 
tive  center,  and  speak  not  of  one  evolution  but  of  many  ? 
Must  we  not  also  recognize  dissolution  as  a  very  serious 
factor  in  history,  and  if  so,  are  we  to  conceive  the  evolu- 
tionary process  as  renewing  itself,  so  to  say,  in  an  indefi- 
nite number  of  successive  attempts,  following  in  a  vari- 
ety of  directions  where  the  line  of  least  resistance  leads, 
rather  than  as  a  single  continuous  process  advancing  in 
a  constant  direction  ?  These  are  among  the  questions 
that  press  for  a  solution,  and  their  presence  gravely 
complicates  our  problem.  They  mean  that  we  cannot 
start  from  the  conception  of  social  evolution  as  a  unitary  A^' 
process.  We  must  admit  divergent  lines  of  evolution. 
It  follows  that  we  cannot  reduce  the  study  of  social 
evolution  to  a  simple  narrative.  Our  method  must  be 
not  so  much  historical  as  comparative.  It  must  consist 
in  a  review  of  the  multifarious  fprms  of  human  achieve- 
ment, with  a  view  to  scientific  classification. 

In  this,  after  all,  we  are  merely  following  precedent. 
It  would  seem  that  the  foundation  of  any  sound  evolu- 
tionary theory  is  always  a  morphology ;  that  is  to  say,  it 
is  a  systematic  arrangement  of  the  types  that  we  find  in  i^ 


112     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

accordance  with  their  affinities.  Such  an  arrangement  is 
that  which  is  most  Ukely  to  throw  hght  upon  the  actual 
genesis  of  successive  types,  and  to  prepare  us,  therefore, 
both  for  our  descriptive  and  for  our  causational  con- 
ceptions of  evolution.  In  the  case  of  biological  evolu- 
tion, such  a  morphology  underlies  the  work  of  Darwin 
and  forms,  in  fact,  the  chief  strength  of  his  argument. 
In  the  famous  fourteenth  chapter  of  the  ^'Origin  of 
Species, '^  Darwin  points  out  that  though  naturalists 
had  not  as  a  rule  accepted  the  theory  of  descent  and  had 
certainly  made  their  classification  without  regard  to  any 
theory  of  the  way  in  which  forms  originated,  they  had, 
nevertheless,  guided  by  the  inherent  logic  of  the  facts, 
arrived  at  principles  of  arrangement  corresponding  ac- 
curately to  the  laws  of  growth.  In  their  search  for 
deeper  affinities,  for  real  resemblances  as  against  superfi- 
cial analogies,  they  had  come  to  grouping  things  together 
by  a  kind  of  logical  genealogy  which  could  only  be  ex- 
plained when  interpreted  as  a  real  or  physical  genealogy. 
Thus  Darwin  found  the  whole  fabric  of  organic  evolu- 
tion standing,  as  it  were,  ready  waiting  for  him  in  the 
great  natural  classifications  of  botany  and  zoology.  All 
he  had  to  do  was  to  supply  the  connecting  link  which 
would  show  how  the  species  thus  arranged  into  genera, 
the  genera  grouped  into  families,  the  families  into  orders, 
the  orders  into  classes,  and  the  classes  into  sub-king- 
doms, might  be  conceived  as  really  originating  from  a 
common  stock  in  such  a  way  as  to  generate  by  intelli- 
gible causes  those  peculiar  forms  of  identity  in  diversity 
which  constitute  the  organic  world  as  thus  classified. 
Thus,  to  link  up  the  organic  creation  and  to  transform 
the  dead,  crystallized  classification  into  a  living  move- 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  113 

ment,  Darwin  had  to  do  two  things.  First,  he  had  to 
show  by  means  of  the  geological  record  that  the  clas- 
sification corresponded  to  a  real  time  series,  that  the 
simpler  forms  came  first,  and  that  the  more  highly  de- 
veloped ones  succeeded  them  in  due  order.  To  estab- 
lish this  point,  so  far  as  it  has  been  established,  was  the 
work  of  paleontology;  he  ha3  to  show,  secondly,  a 
means  by  which  the  more  generic  forms  would  become 
differentiated  into  specific  types,  and  this  was  the  spe- 
cial work  of  Darwin.  His  method  is  a  classical  example 
of  the  legitimate  as  opposed  to  the  illegitimate  use  of 
hypothesis.  He  started  from  known  facts ;  he  began 
by  asking,  that  is  to  say,  how  changes  of  type  are  ac- 
tually produced  under  our  observation,  and  he  found, 
as  he  considered,  that  it  was  done  habitually  by  human 
breeders  through  the  accumulation  of  small  variations 
by  selective  breeding.  He  then  asked  how  far  the  same 
conditions  operate  apart  from  human  agency,  and  he 
found  that  the  higher  rate  of  elimination  of  individuals 
less  suited  to  the  conditions  of  their  existence  would, 
for  the  purposes  of  his  inquiry,  have  effects  analogous 
to  that  of  the  intelligent  breeding  by  human  beings. 
He  inferred  accordingly  that  there  were  conditions  per- 
manently at  work,  which  he  summed  up  in  the  some- 
what unfortunately  chosen  metaphor  of  Natural  Selec- 
tion, making  for  the  modification  of  organic  types,  and 
he  gave  reasons  for  thinking  that  this  agency  would, 
in  the  main,  account  for  that  arrangement  of  organic 
forms  which  was  the  starting-point  of  his  inquiry. 

Now  this  is  a  classical  example  of  a  good  evolutionary 
hjrpothesis,  but  it  is  easy  to  see  the  difficulty  of  raising 
such  a  hypothesis  to  the  rank  of  a  demonstrative  truth. 


114     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  exceedingly  difficult  to  be  sure  that 
the  conditions  specified  in  the  hypothesis  are  the  only 
ones  at  work.  That  such  variations  occur  was  known. 
That  larger  variations  might  occur  in  the  order  of  nature 
and  be  perpetuated  by  heredity  was  scarcely  suspected. 
Again,  that  Natural  Selection  operates  may  be  taken  as 
an  established  truth,  but  that  it  is  the  only  factor  in  op- 
eration is  a  very  different  proposition.  Darwin  himself 
thought  that  it  was  not,  and  whether  his  successors  have 
proved  the  contrary  is  still  an  open  question.  The 
problem  might  be  more  easily  resolved  if  we  could  as- 
certain the  second  point ;  that  is  to  say,  if  we  could  ac- 
curately measure  the  effect  of  Natural  Selection.  Could 
we  determine  the  limits  within  which  it  works,  the  veloc- 
ity of  the  changes  produced,  and  so  forth,  we  could  then 
measure  its  calculated  operation  against  the  observed 
facts  just  as  Newton  measured  the  calculated  effect  of 
gravitation  against  the  observed  motions  of  the  planets. 
But  in  biology  we  have  as  yet  no  such  quantitative  laws. 
Until  we  can  quantify  we  can  hardly  demonstrate. 
/All  this  merely  indicates  once  again  that  a  theory  of  the 
"1  conditions  of  evolution  is  less  easily  demonstrated  than  ^ 
*  a  theory  of  the  process  of  evolution.  ^ 

Now  biologists  from  Darwin's  day  to  our  own  have 
been  almost  exclusively  occupied  with  the  theory  of 
conditions.  As  to  what  evolution  does,  whither  it 
tends,  what  progress  it  effects,  and  whether  indeed  the 
term  "progress"  has  any  application  to  its  works  at  all, 
are  questions  with  which  they  have  had  little  concern. 
They  have  been  generally  content  to  follow  Mr.  Spencer 
in  conceiving  evolution  as  a  process  from  the  simple 
to  the  complex,  or  they  have  regarded  it  simply  as  a 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  115 

progressive  adaptation  of  the  organism  to  the  environ- 
ment. Only  when  they  have  descended  into  the  socio- 
logical arena  have  some  of  the  less  cautious  among  them 
assumed  dogmatically  that  whatever  its  direction, 
evolution  is  a  movement  that  makes  for  good  and  is 
not  to  be  thwarted  by  the  pun^jT  moral  consciousness  of 
man.  This  position,  however,  we  have  seen  to  be  not 
that  of  scientific  biology  but  of  unscientific  sociological 
dogmatism.  Of  biology  as  a  science  it  may  be  said 
that  beyond  the  generalities  mentioned  it  has  not  inter- 
ested itself  very  greatly  in  the  question  what  evolves^x 
but  almost  entirely  in  the  question  how  things  evolve. 
If  indeed  we  were  to  put  the  former  question  to  the 
biologist,  he  would  reply  by  referring  us  to  the  table 
of  Fauna  and  Flora  with  a  simple  ^^circumspice." 
Yet  there  is  a  sense  in  which  the  question  becomes  of 
very  real  importance,  though  as  we  shall  see  it  is  quite 
easy  to  understand  why  in  this  sense  it  does  not  interest 
the  biologist  itself.  If  we  take  any  living  species  and 
trace  its  ancestry  with  the  aid  of  the  biologist  back  to 
the  earliest  forms  of  life,  it  is  clearly  open  to  us  to  ask, 
what  is  the  nature  of  the  change  that  it  has  undergone  ? 
It  is  also  easy  to  understand  that  from  the  biological 
point  of  view  the  inquiry  may  lead  to  no  very  interesting 
result,  and  with  a  few  words  about  differentiation, 
articulation,  and  adaptation  to  environment  the  matter 
will  be  closed.  But  suppose  that  the  species  that  we 
choose  is  Man,  and  that  we  put  the  question  in  this 
way :  as  compared  with  the  lowest  organisms  from 
which  we  assume  him  to  have  originated,  what  is  Man  ? 
What  distance  has  he  traveled?  What  powers  has 
he   acquired?     What   is   the  nature   of   the   changes 


116     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

which  have  brought  this  species  to  the  birth?  Are 
they  changes  of  degree  or  changes  which  though  con- 
tinuous may  yet  be  called  changes  of  kind  ?  What  do 
they  portend?  Can  we  infer  from  the  phases  that 
have  been  passed  through  anything  as  to  the  future  ? 
Can  we  gain  any  insight  into  human  potentialities  ? 
Can  we  learn  anything  of  man's  ultimate  place  in 
nature?  It  is  clear  that  whatever  else  may  be  said 
of  these  questions  they  cannot  be  dismissed  as  lacking 
in  interest.  But  for  reasons  of  which  we  have  seen 
something  the  biologist  as  such  cannot  answer  them, 
and  if  he  is  wise  does  not  meddle  with  them.  But 
they  suggest  a  way  of  treating  evolutionary  problems 
of  which  much  more  will  be  heard  in  the  future  than 
has  been  heard  hitherto.  They  suggest  the  necessity 
of  what  I  have  called  a  formula  of  descriptive  synthesis, 
the  object  of  which  is  to  measure  the  direction  and  the 
distance  traversed  in  the  evolution  of  man.  By  such  a 
measure  we  arrive  at  an  answer  to  the  question,  to 
put  it  in  a  common  phrase,  of  what  evolution  amounts  to. 
We  assess  its  value.  We  are  able  to  take  a  comprehen- 
sive and  accurate  view  of  what  it  has  done,  and  we  get 
a  firm  basis  for  measuring  its  further  possibilities. 

Now  the  sciences  which  deal  with  man  from  this  point 
of  view  are  two.  The  first  is  Comparative  Psychology, 
the  second  is  Sociology.  The  first  is  especially  con- 
cerned with  the  genesis  of  the  human  mind  as  such. 
It  seeks  to  determine  the  stages  of  development  which 
lead  from  the  first  beginnings  of  psychic  life  to  the  emer- 
gence of  the  human  reason-.  It  seeks  for  links  to  connect 
what  at  first  sight  may  appear  severed  and  even  dis- 
parate, but  if  it  is  genuinely  scientific,  it  proceeds 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  117 

without  any  attempt  to  slur  over  differences.  In  this 
manner  it  arrives  at  a  true  sense  of  the  distance  traveled 
in  the  evolution  of  mind.  It  has  a  morphology,  too, 
of  its  own.  The  forms  in  which  it  is  interested  are 
the  forms  of  mental  operation,  and  it  seeks  to  arrange 
them  in  such  a  way  as  to  show,  how  the  most  elaborate 
are  joined  by  a  series  of  intermediaries  with  the  most 
simple.  These  intermediate  phases  it  finds  both  in  the 
mind  of  man  itself,  where  higher  and  lower  operate 
together,  and  in  various  species  of  the  animal  world 
where  as  it  descends  the  scale  it  finds  the  higher  func- 
tions disappearing  one  after  another. 

Now  when  comparative  psychology  reaches  the 
mind  of  man  its  work  is  by  no  means  at  an  end.  On 
the  contrary,  mental  development  proceeds  even  more 
rapidly  than  before.  But  it  is  now  as  we  have  seen  a 
social  rather  than  a  mental  development,  and  the 
psychological  becomes  a  part  of  the  general  sociological 
investigation.  Here  again  the  same  method  is  open 
to  us.  We  can  take  any  phase  of  civilization,  and  going 
back  over  its  ancestry  —  so  far  as  we  know  or  can 
reasonably  infer  it  —  we  can  ask  what  the  growth 
"amounts  to."  We  can  inquire  into  the  direction  and 
distance  of  the  social  movement  which  we  find.  In 
particular  we  may  do  this  with  our  own  civilization, 
necessarily  the  latest,  and  actually  in  many  ways  a 
most  distinctive  and  peculiar  type.  We  can  go  back  to 
what  history  tells  us  with  certainty,  and  to  what  anthro- 
pology enables  us  to  infer  with  reasonable  probability 
of  the  earlier  forms  of  society,  and  we  can  then  ask 
whether,  reviewing  the  Ufe-history  of  humanity  as  a 
whole,  we  can  discover  in  it  under  all  its  wild  irregu- 


118     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

larities,  its  waves  and  troughs,  its  periods  of  apparent 
expansion  and  contraction,  any  definite  and  measurable 
current  that  has  on  the  whole  made  a  certain  assign- 
able distance  in  a  certain  assignable  direction.  When 
we  have  discovered  this  movement  we  can  go  on  to  ask 
whether  it  is  a  movement  of  progress  or  not,  i.e, 
whether  it  is  one  which  tends  to  the  realization  of 
ends  on  which  we  can  reasonably  set  a  value.  But 
first  of  all  we  want  to  know  what  the  movement 
actually  has  been.  We  want  to  determine  the  orbit, 
if  orbit  there  be,  of  human  social  evolution.  This 
I  take  to  be  the  prime  object  of  sociology,  and  the 
method  by  which  it  is  to  be  approached  is  a  social 
morphology.  Now  a  social  morphology  involves  not  _ 
merely  a  collection  of  sociological  data,  but  a  syste- 
matic arrangement  of  social  types,  and  by  social  types 
we  mean  examples  of  all  the  leading  forms  of  human 
achievement  which  result  from  the  interaction  of  in- 
dividuals, —  types  of  social  institution,  forms  of  govern- 
ment, principles  of  law,  types  of  the  family,  and,  again, 
intellectual,  moral,  and  artistic  traditions,  religions, 
ethical  systems,  sciences,  arts.  We  need  not  merely  to 
collect  and  enumerate  the  successive  achievements  of 
mankind  in  these  various  directions,  but  to  arrange 
them  in  some  way  that  will  exhibit  their  affinities  and 
interactions,  that  will  help  us  to  appreciate  the  lines 
of  social  development.  We  need  a  classification  leading 
up  to  a  social  morphology. 

Our  first  business  then  is  to  classify,  and  in  its  first 
stage  such  a  classification  presents  no  great  logical 
difficulty.  It  is  comparatively  easy,  for  example,  to 
take  an  institution  like  that  of  human  marriage,  to 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  119 

run  through  the  data  afforded  by  anthropologists, 
and  by  the  law  books  of  civilizations,  to  distinguish 
certain  principal  types,  and  to  exhibit  other  forms  as 
gradations  between  them.  Such  a  classification  is  at 
least  more  likely  to  yield  positive  results  than  a  specu-  ^^ 
lative  inquiry  into  the  original  form  of  marriage,  which 
is  and  must  be  outside  the  sj^here  of  possible  verifica- 
tion and  which  can  only  yield  the  results  which  we 
find  by  observation,  through  some  more  or  less  ingenious 
form  of  historical  torture.  As  against  the  speculative-^ 
method  which  assumes  an  original  type  and  deduces  ^ 
existing  forms  therefrom,  the  evolutionary  methods- 
regards  every  type  alike  as  an  adaptation  of  social 
life  to  meet  certain  conditions.  Its  object  is  to  discover 
the  genetic  affinities  of  these  types  whereby  they  pass 
into  one  another  in  response  to  changes  of  conditions. 
The  important  thing  here  to  discover  is  what  is  funda- 
mental and  what  accidental,  and  again  what  is  perma- 
nent and  what  modifiable.  If  this  can  be  done,  we  may 
perhaps  have  a  basis  for  inferring  the  type  which  would 
be  found  under  conditions  more  primitive  than  any 
of  which  we  have  a  record.  But  we  should  not  use  our 
suppositions  on  this  point  as  starting-points  for  a  theory 
which  is  to  explain  the  facts.  They  are  rather  con- 
clusions, and  are  likely  to  be  amongst  the  most  doubt- 
ful conclusions  of  the  theory  already  formed. 

But  this  explanation  brings  to  light  a  real  difficulty. 
We  are  seeking  not  merely  to  classify,  but  to  classify  in 
such  a  way  as  to  throw  light  on  genesis.  That  is  to  say, 
we  want  to  exhibit  institutions  in  an  order  in  which 
they  might  be  conceived  as  growing  up.  This  is  what 
is  meant  by  saying  that  we  want  our  classification  to 


^120     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

be  a  morphology.  But  it  is  precisely  at  this  point  that 
logical  difficulties  arise.  For  example,  we  may  legiti- 
mately classify  types  of  marriage,  not  upon  one  basis 
only,  but  upon  several;  each  of  these  will  be  equally 
legitimate  and  the  divisions  that  result  will  not  coincide, 
but  run  across  one  another.  Thus  we  may  go  by  the 
number  of  parties  to  the  union,  and  so  distinguish 
monogamy,  polygamy,  polyandry,  and,  if  we  are  satis- 
fied of  their  existence,  group  marriage  and  promiscuity, 
and  between  each  of  these  types  we  may  find  intervening 
gradations.  But  we  might  equally  well  group  mar- 
riages in  accordance  with  the  permanence  of  the  relation 
and  distinguish  cases  in  which  marriage  is  indissoluble 
from  those  in  which  divorce  is  allowed,  and  divide  up 
the  latter  again  into  multitudinous  varieties  according 
as  the  conditions  of  divorce  differ.  Equally  well  we 
might  distinguish  marriages  by  the  methods  whereby 
a  partner  is  obtained,  as,  for  example,  by  capture,  by  pur- 
chase, by  service  rendered  by  the  husband  to  the  wife's 
relations,  by  mutual  consent,  and  so  forth.  Or,  lastly, 
we  might  take  the  relation  of  husband  and  wife  within 
the  family  and  exhibit  the  gradations  between  the 
system  which  gives  almost  absolute  power  to  the  husband 
and  that  which  leaves  husband  and  wife  members  of 
two  distinct  families  and,  in  the  main,  independent  of 
each  other.  How  are  we  to  decide  which  of  these 
possible  methods  of  classification  will  best  bring  out 
the  fundamental  nature  of  the  institution  and  of  the 
causes  which  modify  it  ?  There  is  not  —  at  least 
there  is  not  yet  accepted  by  sociologists,  so  far  as  I 
am  aware  —  any  comprehensive  account  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  family  which  would  explain  the  rise  of  all 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  121 

these  different  forms  and  bring  them  systematically 
into  correlation  with  one  another.  Here  and  there, 
doubtless,  we  can  see  certain  points  of  connection.  For 
example,  it  is  easily  understood  that  where  a  husband 
purchases  a  wife  from  her  relations  as  a  quasi  chattel,  he 
will  have  extensive  powers  over  what  he  has  bought. 
The  probability  is  that  his  rights  will  be  at  a  maximum 
and  hers  at  a  minimum,  and  so  we  are  quite  prepared  to 
find  wife-purchase  associated  with  a  high  extension  of 
marital  power,  with  one  form  or  other  of  polygamy, 
and  with  a  one-sided  system  of  divorce.  But  even  in 
such  a  generalization  as  this,  comparative  ethics  compels 
us  to  be  very  careful,  and  this  is  only  a  partial  and  lim- 
ited generalization  covering  but  a  fraction  of  the  facts. 
It  is  probable  that  partial  and  limited  truths  of  this 
kind  are  all  that  we  can  attain  by  studying  marriage 
by  itself.  Now  it  is  true  that  we  are  at  present  dealing 
not  with  explanation  but  with  classification.  But 
we  are  faced  by  the  fact  that  we  can  classify  in  more 
than  one  way,  and  we  want  to  know  which  way  of 
classifying  will  give  us  most  insight,  that  is  to  say,  which 
will  best  express  the  real  affinities  of  the  different  types. 
Now  even  a  cursory  study  of  the  facts  suggests  the 
truth  —  and  this  is  the  root  of  the  difficulty  —  that 
an  institution  like  marriage  does  not  stand  alone ;  its 
evolution  is  not  an  independent  evolution.  We  cannot 
write  its  life-history  as  we  can  that  of  an  individual 
physical  organism.  It  is  affected  by  a  complex  mass  of 
social  factors  which  do  not  take  their  origin  from  the 
life  of  the  family  as  such  but  which  impinge  upon,  and 
may  gradually  modify,  that  Hfe.  It  is  affected,  for 
example,  by  religious  conceptions,  by  economic  con- 


122     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

ditions,  by  class  or  caste  distinctions.  It  is  affected, 
probably,  by  physiological  causes,  of  the  nature  of 
which  we  are  in  ignorance,  which  determine  the  rela- 
tive number  of  the  sexes.  What  is  true  of  marriage  is 
true  of  any  other  social  institution  that  we  like  to  take. 
No  one  of  them  stands  alone ;  they  impinge,  in  a  de- 
gree and  manner  which  can  only  be  learned  from  ex- 
perience, upon  one  another ;  and  modifications  in  any 
one  of  them  may  thus  proceed  from  without. 

It  follows  that  resemblances  between  different 
societies  may  often  be  what  biologists  would  call 
analogical  rather  than  morphological.  That  is  to 
say,  though  we  may  find  certain  features  of  similarity 
in  institutional  forms,  this  similarity  may  point  to  no 
close  relationship,  to  no  filiation,  to  no  real  affinity 
between  two  societies  compared.  It  is  merely  what 
we  call  —  by  way  of  expressing  our  ignorance  —  the 
casual  result  of  a  combination  of  circumstances.  The 
case  of  marriage  itself  presents  some  curious  analogi- 
cal similarities.  For  example,  monogamy  is,  on  the 
whole,  a  characteristic  of  the  higher  civilizations, 
but  we  find  sporadic  cases  of  it  amongst  the  lowest 
savages,  and  that  even  in  its  most  extreme  form. 
Indissoluble  monogamous  marriage  is  the  common 
property  of  the  Veddahs  of  Ceylon,  one  of  the  rudest 
races  known  to  anthropology,  and  of  all  communities 
which  conform  to  the  law  of  the  Roman  Church. 
It  occurs,  scattered  here  and  there,  among  a  few 
other  savage  tribes,  and  appears  to  be  contemplated 
in  at  least  one  form  of  the  Brahminic  religious  code. 
What  real  affinity  can  there  be  in  these  cases  ?  There 
is  nothing  to  suggest  mutual  influence.     There  is  every 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  123 

reason  to  deny  a  fundamental  identity  of  social  struc- 
ture such  as  would  produce  a  corresponding  result. 
The  resemblance  is  analogical.  Conditions,  which 
in  some  of  the  instances  mentioned  are  known  and  in 
others  are  not  known,  have  produced  a  result  which 
is  in  one  respect  the  same,  and  that  is  all  that  we  can 
say.  We  cannot  use  this  "sameness  to  draw  infer- 
ences as  to  any  deeper  identity.  It  is  analogical,  not 
morphological. 

The  same  may  be  said  of  countless  institutions  that 
recur  in  comparative  jurisprudence,  or  comparative 
ethics.  The  equality  of  a  primitive  community,  for  ex- 
ample, has  very  little  beyond  the  surface  fact  in  com- 
mon with  the  equality  for  which  modern  democracies 
strive.  The  self-government  of  a  village  community 
has  perhaps  more  in  common  with  the  representative 
institutions  of  a  modern  state,  but  yet  the  differences 
are  probably  more  important  than  the  resemblances. 
There  is  respect  for  property  which  is  dependent  upon 
a  taboo,  that  is  to  say,  on  the  belief  in  certain  magical 
forces  which  will  bring  evil  upon  him  who  violates  it ; 
and  there  is  respect  for  property  which  depends  upon 
an  ethical  appreciation  of  human  rights.  In  both  cases 
the  result  is  that  the  property  of  another  is  left  un- 
touched, but  excepting  in  the  result,  how  little  they 
have  in  common !  These  deeper  distinctions  appear, 
it  will  be  seen,  when  we  take  into  consideration  not 
merely  the  outward  form  of  an  institution,  but  its 
meaning  and  value  for  the  society  which  maintains  it. 
Where  outward  forms  are  the  same,  but  the  psycho- 
logical forces  that  underlie  them  are  different,  there 
is  no  real  kinship.    Conversely,  where  the  psychological 


124    SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

forces  are  nearly  alike,  where  the  motives  or  concep- 
tions operating  in  them  are  of  the  same  order,  there 
may  be  considerable  differences  of  external  form  due 
to  variation  of  circumstances,  but  implying  no  deep- 
seated  divergence  of  type.  If  that  is  so,  it  is  the 
psychological  groundwork  that  determines  the  true 
affinities  in  a  sociological  classification.  Such,  at  least, 
is  the  hypothesis  on  which  ^we  shall  proceed,  and  it 
will  be  at  least  worth  while  to  see  whither  it  leads  us. 
In  practice  it  will  mean  only  that  we  must  look  not 
merely  to  the  outer  form  of  the  institution,  but  to  its 
principle  or  spirit.  Keeping  this  caution  in  view,  then, 
our  primary  object  in  the  study  of  social  evolution  is 
to  distinguish  the  various  phases  or  forms  of  social  life, 
whether  in  the  direction  of  thought  or  action,  of  ideas 
or  Tristltutions,  in  such  a  way  as  to  obtain  a  compara- 
tive view  of  the  stages  or  phases  of  human  develop- 
ment, and  in  particular  of  that  development  which  has 
brought  a  large  portion  of  humanity  to  the  present 
j  stage  of  civilization.  When  these  successive  forms  or 
phases  are  compared,  it  will  become  possible  to  review 
the  movement  as  a  whole  and  to  ask  our  question  — 
\  what  does  it  amount  to  ?  First,  How  far  and  in  what 
\  direction  has  it  taken  us  ?  Second,  Does  it  or  does  it 
Inot  conform  to  our  conception  of  progress  ? 

In  a  complete  survey  it  is  clear  that  every  depart- 
ment of  social  development  would  have  to  be  con- 
sidered —  knowledge,  imagination,  religion,  ethics,  law, 
industry,  and  so  forth.  Any  such  treatment  within 
our  limits  would  be  out  of  the  question.  I  can  only 
attempt  to  illustrate  certain  aspects  of  development 
with  the  object  of  showing  you  how  the  method  may 


SOCIAL  MORPHOLOGY  125 

be  applied.  There  are  many  aspects  that  attract.  I 
might  follow  the  development  of  knowledge  and  the 
control  of  life  by  science,  but  on  this  side  the  con- 
ception of  progress  is  familiar  and  needs  little  argument 
to  establish  its  validity.  I  might  deal  with  the  in- 
finitely subtler  question  of  the  formation  in  ethics 
and  religion  of  principles  for  the  guidance  of  life,  and 
the  emergence  of  the  belief  tliat  the  well-being  of  society ' 
is  itself  the  ultimate  standard  to  which  such  concep- 
tions should  be  referred.  But  on  this  side  I  should  be 
dealing  with  first  principles  and  with  matters  that  lie 
beyond  our  present  scope.  I  shall  glance  at  one  point 
in  this  development  at  a  later  stage,  but  shall  attempt 
no  regular  discussion  of  it.  The  aspect  of  development 
which  I  propose  to  take  is  the  elaboration  of  the  prin- 
ciples necessary  to  social  cooperation,  and  in  particular 
The  growth  of  government  and  its  relation  to  liberty. 
These  are  ideas  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  the 
social  harmony.  They  belong  to  the  basis  of  the  whole 
TSatter,  and  for  this  very  reason  they  are  at  the  center 
of  the  problems  of  the  present,  as  of  the  past.  I  shall 
briefly  review  the  main  forms  of  social  institution  in 
which  these  principles  are  embodied.  I  shall  endeavor 
to  determine  in  what  sense  or  to  what  extent  progress 
is  to  be  discovered  on  this  side  of  social  life,  and  this 
in  turn  will  lead  us  to  inquire  as  to  the  possibilities  of 
progress  in  the  future  and  the  means  whereby  it  may 
be  accomplished. 


CHAPTER  VI 

The  Growth  of  the  State 

To  answer  the  questions  proposed  at  the  end  of  the 
last  lecture  would  be  to  write  a  book  in  many  volumes. 
The  task  of  measuring  the  actual  movement  of  civili- 
zation becomes  manageable  only  by  a  division  of  labor. 
I  have  attempted  elsewhere  to  deal-  with  it  from  the 
point  of  view  of  ethics,  —  a  point  of  view  which 
necessarily  involves  something  of  the  development  of 
religion  and  something  of  the  development  of  juris- 
prudence within  its  scope.  Recently  Dr.  Miiller  Lyer, 
in  his  ^^Phasen  der  Kultur,"  has  applied  a  similar  treat- 
ment to  the  development  of  industry.  Enough  has 
been  done  to  indicate  some  of  the  difficulties  that  beset 
this  method  of  treatment,  and  also  to  suggest  certain 
results.  These  I  will  endeavor  to  indicate  to  you  by 
taking  one  side  of  social  life,  and  tracing  development 
on  this  side  as  we  pass  from  the  simplest  to  the  most 
advanced  modern  societies.  As  some  compensation  for 
the  limitations  of  the  inquiry,  I  will  take  one  of  the 
fundamental  problems.  I  will  ask  you  to  consider  the 
nature  of  the  social  bond,  to  examine  what  is  common 
to  all  societies  and  what  is  distinctive,  and  I  shall  try 
to  show  that  what  is  distinctive  in  the  nature  of  the 
sociaj.  bond  forms  a  fundamental  principle  of  classifica- 
tion in  any  social  morphology,  and  serves  as  one  of  the 
measuring  rods  which  helps  us  to  determine  the  nature 

126 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  127 

'of  the  movement  which  has  made  modern  civilization 
^.what  it  is.     From  one  point  of  view,  as  has  been  seen, 
/    social  progress  may  be  regarded  as  development  of  the 
'    principle  of  union,  order,  cooperation,  harmony  among 
.,  human  beings.    This  development  may  be  traced  in  the 
first  instance  by  means  of  a  classification  of  the  main 
types  of  social  organization  in  accordance  with  the  dis- 
tinctive nature  of  the  sociqj  bond.  ^ 
Now  there  are,  as  has  been  hinted,  some  forces  mak- 
ing for  union  which  are  common  to  the  life  of  all  society 
from  the  lowest  to  the  highest.     There  is,  for  example,^ 
a  certain  mutual  interest  of  a  complex  kind,  which, 
from  the  lowest  group  of  savages  to  the  most  highly 
developed  civilized  structure,  tends  to  keep  men  to- 
gether and  maintain  a  certain  kind  of    cooperation. 
This  mutual  interest,^  moreover,  is  not  entirely  of  a 
selfish  character.     It  is  not  only  that  men  have  need 
of  one  another  for  mutual  defense,  or,  at  a  higher  stage,  j 
for  cooperation  in  industry  or  in  science ;    there    is  j 
also  the  interest  in  another  sense  which  we  take  in' 
one  another  as  human  beings,  and  which  is  a  wider! 
thing  than  sympathy  and  a  less  purely  moral  thing! 
^than  altruism  or  unselfishness.     The  solitary  life  is,  for 
all  but  the  most  exceptional  of  individuals,  the  least 
tolerable  of  all.     We  choose  —  like  Alexander  Selkirk 
—  'Ho  dwell  in  the  midst  of  alarms''  rather  than  to 
reign  in  a  horrible  place  of  sohtude.     Those  we  hate 
are  preferable  as  companions  to  the  desert  and  the  seas. 
pThis  mutuality  of  interests,  so  to  speak,  is  something 
\  underlying  all  human,  perhaps  even  all  animal,  associa- 

1  Which  corresponds,  I  take  it,  broadly  to  what  Professor  Gid- 
dings  called  the  Consciousness  of  Kind. 


128     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

tion.  It  does  not  therefore  serve  as  a  distinguishing 
principle  in  social  classifications.  Doubtless  it  under- 
goes changes  of  degree  and  even  of  kind;  as  society 
progresses,  the  interest  widens  and  deepens.  On  the 
whole,  in  the  higher  societies  its  more  benevolent  as- 
pects tend  to  predominate ;  but  we  could  not,  I  think, 
from  these  changes  of  degree  make  a  universal  basis  of 
classification.  - 

What  we  need  for  our  purposes  is  to  find  certain 
principles  of  union,  which  serve  as  bonds  for  human 
society,  and  each  of  which  may  at  successive  stages 
be  regarded  as  the  leading  force  which  gives  its  charac- 
ter to  the  social  union.     It  is  not  necessary  at  a  higher 
stage  that  the  bond  operating  at  a  lower  should  dis- 
appear.    On  the  contrary,  we  shall  see  that  it  is  still 
maintained  in  its  own  place.     But  the  different  forces 
.  which  I  shall  distinguish  may,  I  think,  be  regarded  as 
--^he  dominant  forces,  each  in  certain  great  classes  of 
human  society.    These  forces  may  be  grouped  under 
three  main  heads,  which  may  be  called  the  leading  prin^ 
^^iples  of  social  union.     They  are  the  principles,  first, 
-  Nof  kinship ;    secondly,  of  authority ;    and  thirdly,  of 
_^  citizenship.     It  should,  of  course,  at  once  be  explained^ 
that  a  most  important  bond,  distinguished  in  a  way 
from  all  these  three,  is  that  of  a  common  religion ;  but 
it  will  be  seen,  as  our  examination  advances,  that  the 
element  of  religion  is  common  to  all  forms  of  society, 
and  is  to  be  regarded  not  so  much  as  a  distinct  basis 
of   social  union,  but  rather  from  this  point  of   view 
as   an   element  involved  in   the   social   consciousness 
itself  and  as  a  factor  strengthening  its  hold  upon  the 
minds  of  men. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  129 

What,  then,  are  the  different  forms  of  society  that 
we  find  based  upon  these  three  main  principles?  To 
begin  with  kinship.  The  lower  forms  of  society  ap-^ 
pear  to  rest  in  a  special  way  upon  the  tie  of  blood, 
and  the  way  in  which  this  tie  is  conceived,  the  extent 
to  which  it  is  recognized,  and  the  manner  in  which  it 
is  extended,  whether  by  fictitious  forms  or  in  other 
ways,  gives  the  key  to  the  social  order  of  the  greater 
part  of  the  uncivilized  w^rld.  In  all  the  varieties 
that  we  find,  the  one  permanent  element  —  as  it  is, 
in  the  order  of  nature,  the  most  indestructible  element 
—  is  the  relation  of  mother  and  children.  When  some 
thinkers  conceived  primitive  man  as  possibly  living, 
isolated,  in  a  state  of  nature,  they  forgot  one  simple 
and  well-established  generalization  —  that  all  men  have 
mothers;  and  whatever  may  be  said  of  the  inferior 
parent,  it  is  at  least  the  universal  property  of  mothers 
to  tend  their  children,  feed,  protect,  and  shelter  them 
as  they  grow  up.  This  primitive  group,  which  is 
constituted  by  the  mother  and  children,  runs  aUke 
through  all  forms  of  primitive  and  advanced  society. 
It  gives  rise  in  the  uncivilized  world  to  two  main  forms 
of  the  social  structure,  which  differ  in  accordance  with 
the  position  of  the  husband  and  father.  The  husband 
may  form  a  permanent  union  with  the  mother  of 
such  a  kind  that  upon  marriage  a  new  family  group  is 
formed,  which  will  consist  not  of  mother  and  children 
alone,  but  of  parents  and  children.  In  this  case — speak- 
ing generally  —  the  position  of  the  father  dominates 
the  life  of  the  family;  the  father  remains  in  his  own 
clan  and  the  wife  joins  him,  and  the  new  group  is  added 
to  the  paternal  clan.     If  we  conceive  such  a  family 


130     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

growing  up  and  the  sons  taking  to  themselves  fresh 
wives,  we  can  imagine  each  new  family  forming  a 
part  of  the  larger  household,  a  family  within  a  family, 
a  part  within  a  whole.  We  can  conceive  the  grand- 
father continuing  to  bear  rule,  and  on  his  death  hand- 
ing over  his  authority,  perhaps  to  his  eldest  son,  perhaps 
to  the  son  pointed  out  by  natural  gifts  and  attainments 
for  the  post  of  honor.  If  such  a  stock  is  fruitful  and 
multiplies,  we  have  a  model  of  the  patriarchate,  the 
form  of  early  society  familiar  to  the  first  anthro- 
pological inquirers  from  the  Book  of  Genesis,  from  the 
Roman  law,  and  from  what  was  known  of  our  own  Teu- 
tonic ancestors.  It  was  a  very  natural  inference  to 
be  drawn  in  the  early  stage  of  anthropology  that  this 
was  in  fact  the  primeval  form  of  human  society,  but  a 
little  further  investigation  shows  that  there  is  another 
possibility,  which  has  actually  been  realized  over  a 
large  part  of  the  earth.  The  primitive  group  of  mother 
and  children  might  be  formed  into  a  larger  society  upon 
a  different  principle.  The  connection  of  husband  and 
wife  might  be  of  a  less  intimate  kind.  A  husband 
might  remain  a  member  of  his  own  clan  or  of  his  own 
group,  while  the  mother  and  her  children  remained 
associated  with  the  group  in  which  she  was  born; 
and  descent,  upon  this  principle,  would  continue  in 
the  female  line,  the  daughters  in  their  turn  obtaining 
husbands  from  without,  the  sons  remaining  attached 
to  the  group,  but  finding  themselves  wives  in  another 
family.  This  is  the  system  of  maternal  kinship  in 
which  descent  goes,  as  it  is  termed,  by  mother-right. 
Whether  this  is  the  primitive  system  or  not,  the  evidence  | 
is  not  sufficient  to  decide,  but  it  is  widely  diffused  in 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  131 

the  uncivilized  world,  and  traces  of  it  are  to  be  found 
in  forms,  both  of  civilized  and  uncivilized  society, 
which  have  adopted  the  patriarchate. 

The  two  forms  of  grouping  are  permeated  by  two 
different  conceptions  of  kinship.  In  the  one,  kinship ;./ 
through  the  female  is  all-important,  and  in  extreme 
cases  is  the  only  kind  of  kinship  that  counts.  In  the 
other,  kinship  through  the^  male  is  the  predominant 
factor,  and  kinship  through  the  mother  is  secondary, 
is  not  as  a  rule  reckoned  so  far  and  does  not  carry  the 
same  legal  consequences.  These  differences  are  particu- 
larly important  in  relation  to  a  further  development 
of  kinship  which  is  now  to  be  mentioned.  It  is  to  be 
observed  that  direct  descent  is  not  the  only  form  of  kin- 
ship known  either  to  primitive  or  to  advanced  societies. 
It  is  certainly  conceivable  that  a  single  patriarchal 
family,  such  as  we  have  first  described,  might,  if  it 
be  fruitful  and  multiply  with  exceptional  success, 
develop  into  a  clan  and  even  into  a  large  society ;  but 
such  multiplication  could  only  be  very  exceptional. 
In  point  of  fact,  another  cause  of  growth  has  always  to 
be  taken  into  account.  Whether  kinship  be  reckoned 
through  one  parent  alone  or  through  both,  it  is  the 
almost  universal  rule  that  the  son  or  daughter  should 
find  a  mate  from  outside  the  kin,  as  the  kin  are  reckoned. 
This  is  an  application  of  what  is  known  as  the  princi- 
ple of  exogamy  —  a  principle  common  to  the  Chinese, 
who  forbid  marriage  between  all  persons  of  the  same 
name,  to  the  Red  Indian,  who  forbids  it  to  all  of  the  same 
totem,  and  to  ourselves,  who  do  not  allow  it  within 
what  are  known  as  the  ^'forbidden  degrees."  Enor- 
mously as  rules  of  exogamy  differ,  the  total  failure  of 


132     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

any  prohibition  is  exceedingly  rare,  if  it  is  to  be  found 
at  all,  in  human  society,  and  the  general  result  of  exog- 
amy is  clear.  It  compels  a  union  of  distinct  families, 
and  in  so  far  as  kinship  is  a  basis  of  cooperation,  mutual 
defense,  and  so  forth,  it  tends  to  connect  certain  families 
for  these  purposes.  Thus  when  we  speak  of  kinship 
as  a  basis  of  society  we  must  bear  in  mind  that  kinship 
involves  two  distinct  lines  of  interconnection  —  the 
line  of  descent  and  the  line  of  intermarriage.  Hence 
such  a  society  is  not  limited  to  one  family,  but  rather 
implies  some  association  between  several  stocks. 

But  limiting,  and  in  a  sense  counteracting,  the  rule 
of  exogamy  is  the  hardly  less  general  rule  of  endogamy, 
which  enjoins  marriage  within  a  certain  group,  and  it 
can  easily  be  seen  that  while  this  principle  would  tend 
to  isolate  the  group  to  which  it  applies,  it  would  equally 
strengthen  the  bonds  of  connection  within  that  group. 
Endogamy  within  the  clan,  for  example,  would  tend  to 
intensify  clan  life  and  at  the  same  time  tend  to  separate 
the  clan  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  So  when  the  clan 
develops  into  a  wider  society,  or  when  different  clans 
come  into  association  and  begin  to  form  a  state,  the 
process  is  frequently  marked  by  a  break-down  of  endoga- 
mous  rules.  In  Rome,  for  example,  marriage  seems 
to  have  been  originally  limited  to  the  gens.  Then  the 
patrician  gentes  came  together  and  formed  a  circle  of 
intermarrying  clans,  from  which  the  plehs  was  excluded. 
The  plehs  obtained  the  jus  connuhii  in  B.C.  445,  and  the 
same  right  was  at  an  early  period  extended  to  the  Latins. 
With  the  extension  of  Latin  rights,  and  subsequently  of 
full  Roman  rights,  the  possible  circle  of  legal  marriage  was 
widened  until  it  included  the  whole  vast  Roman  world. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  133 

So  much  may  be  said  in  common  of  the  principle  of 
kinship,  whether  it  be  based  on  the  blood  of  the  father, 
or  of  the  mother,  or  of  both  parents.  But  there  is  one 
important  sociological  difference  between  the  two  cases. 
Where  mother-right  prevails,  the  natural  family,  that 
is  to  say,  the  union  of  father,  mother,  and  children, 
is  never  complete.  The  tie  between  the  children  and 
the  mother's  relations  is  one  thing,  and  the  tie  between 
them  and  the  father  and  his  kin  is  another  thing. 
The  two  cut  across  one  another,  so  that  normally  under 
this  system  the  child  looks  to  his  maternal  relatives 
for  support  and  protection  rather  than  to  his  father. 
So  too  —  as  in  the  case  of  the  Iroquois  —  the  totemic 
bond  cuts  across  the  tribal,  and  each  man  is  subject, 
as  it  w^re,  to  two  allegiances.  It  can  readily  be  seen 
that  this^does  not  form  so  firm  a  basis  for  a  solid  social 
structure  as  the  paternal  family,  which  makes  direct 
descent  always  the  closest  and  most  substantial  relation- 
ship and  constitutes  the  natural  family  a  unit,  which 
cannot  be  dissolved  by  its  relation  to  other  families, 
though  it  may  count  upon  these  relations  for  mutual 
support.  Hence  it  came  about  that  the  paternal  family 
yielded  the  more  solid  basis  for  the  larger  social  order  of 
the  civihzed  peoples.  But  whichever  the  principle 
adopted  —  and  there  are  many  gradations  between 
the  two,  many  cases  in  which  elements  of  father-right 
and  mother-right  are  blended  and  which  may  be  re- 
garded as  transitional  from  one  system  to  another  — 
these  forms  of  society  resting  upon  kinship  may  be 
regarded  as  in  a  sense  natural  and  primitive.  They 
come  about  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature  from  the 
family  instinct  and  the  successive  results  which  it  en- 


134     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

genders.     We  may  conceive   early  society  as    consti-^ 
tuted  by  ramifications  of  direct  descent  and  intermarriage 
from  the  primordial  group  of  mother  and  children, 
the  relation  of  husband  and  wife  being  the  variable 
factor  giving  rise  where  it  is  relatively  loose  to  the  mater-  i 
nal,  where  it  is  closer  to  the  patriarchal  system.  ^ 

The  growth  of  society  brings  new  principles  into  play. 
In  a  primitive  group  there  are,  as  a  rule,  few  social 
distinctions.  There  is  generally  a  leading  member  or 
head-man,  but  the  powers  of  the  chief  are  often  but 
little  developed,  and  are  mainly  dependent  upon  his 
\  personal  prowess.  It  is  true  that  when  the  patriarchal 
clan  is  highly  developed  and  has  grown  into  a  body  of 
many  families,  acknowledging  a  common  descent  from  an 
ancestor  who  has  already  become  mythical,  his  eldest 
male  representative  begins  to  wield  despotic  powers,  — 
as,  for  example,  in  a  Highland  clan,  —  and  his  immedi- 
ate relations,  or  perhaps  his  favorites  and  followers,  be- 
gin to  form  a  kind  of  aristocracy.  But  supposing  such 
a  clan,  well-organized  and  disciplined  under  an  ambitious 
j  chieftain,  to  betake  itself  to  a  military  life,  a  new  order 
of  things  comes  into  play.  It  will  soon  find  occasion] 
of  quarrel  with  its  neighbors  —  neighbors  have  a  1 
wonderful  facility  of  giving  "  just "  causes  of  offense  to  I 
those  who  are  powerful  —  and  the  stronger  clan  starts  j 
upon  a  warlike  career.  A  double  series  of  results 
ensues.  On  the  one  hand,  the  weaker  surrounding 
peoples  are  probably  reduced  to  a  dependent  position. 
At  the  lowest  stage  perhaps  their  stronger  neighbors 
may  merely  raid  them  for  their  cattle,  but  as  soon  as 
there  is  some  progress  in  the  arts  of  life  their  subjection 
takes  a  more  permanent  form.    They  may  become 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  135 

tributary  to  the  conquering  people,  who  continue  to 
live  at  a  distance,  or  the  conquerors  may  themselves 
enter  into  possession  of  their  territory  and  reduce 
them  either  to  a  feudal  vassalage  or  to  slavery,  and  the 
distinction  of  conqueror  and  conquered  will  turn  into  that 
between  lord  and  slave,  or  into  that  of  upper  and  lower 
caste.  Within  the  conquering  people  themselves,  again, 
changes  occur  which  affect  Jbhe  whole  social  order.  For 
successful  war  discipline  is  needed,  for  discipline  more 
powers  must  be  given  to  the  chief.  Sometimes  in 
barbaric  societies  this  is  pushed  so  far  that  the  chief 
becomes  absolute  master  of  the  persons  and  property 
of  his  subjects.  In  some  of  the  West  African  States, 
like  Dahomey  and  Ashanti,  for  example,  he  was  the 
master  of  the  person  and  property  of  every  man  and 
woman  in  his  dominions.  Any  man  might  be  made 
his  slave,  any  woman  be  taken  into  his  harem.  Usually 
this  exaltation  of  the  chief  is  accompanied  and  fostered 
by  religious  or  magical  conceptions.  The  chief  is  a  man- 
god  ;  his  person  is  sacred ;  it  is  even  dangerous  to  his 
subjects  to  approach  and  look  upon  him.  As  in  Ancient 
Egypt  and  in  Babylon,  his  sanctity  is  carried  to  such  a 
point  that  he  has  to  be  hedged  round  by  minute  ceremo- 
nial, his  doings  intimately  affect  the  fortunes  of  the 
people,  he  becomes  responsible  for  the  weather  and  the 
crops,  and  finally,  he  is  hedged  in  with  so  many  taboos 
that  from  being  absolute  master  he  becomes  a  slave — 
the  slave  of  his  own  courtiers  and  the  priests ;  and  if  he 
does  not  manage  the  weather  and  the  crops  aright,  it 
may  be  the  worse  for  him,  not,  of  course,  for  his  royal 
spirit  —  that  is  sacred  and  immortal  —  but  for  the  mere 
body  in  which  it  is  housed  it  is  another  question. 


136     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

But  turning  from  the  religious  to  the  political  side  of 
the  process,  the  actual  power  of  a  king,  it  may  be 
observed,  is  limited  by  the  narrowness  of  human  capac- 
ity. The  remark  is  attributed  —  upon  what  authority 
I  do  not  know  —  to  Nicholas  I,  the  most  autocratic 
of  the  czars,  that  '^Russia  was  governed  by  ten  thousand 
clerks."  The  remark,  at  any  rate,  was  true,  as  subse- 
quent czars  have  probably  realized.  One  man  cannot 
ever  govern  a  great  empire.  The  exceptions  of  Julius 
Caesar  and  Napoleon  exist  only  to  prove  the  rule, 
and  the  greater  the  empire,  the  wider  the  authority, 
the  more  it  must  be  delegated.  The  followers  and  de- 
pendents of  the  king  are  naturally  favored  in  the  dis- 
tribution of  territory  when  land  is  conquered,  and  they 
rise  to  the  position  of  feudal  lords,  to  aspire  to  some 
independence  where  distance  tends  in  their  favor.  You 
may  remember  the  story  given  by  Tacitus  of  the 
provincial  governor  who  explained  to  the  Emperor 
Tiberius  that  it  would  be  better  not  to  raise  the  question 
of  his  removal.  He  had  a  large  army  under  his  imme- 
diate command,  and  they  might  (this  nominal  dependent 
went  on)  form  a  kind  of  treaty  by  which  the  one  should 
be  thoroughly  loyal  and  %  most  obedient  subject, 
but  the  other  should  entertain  no  question  of  removing 
him  from  his  command.  True  or  not,  this  story, 
dating  from  the  beginnings  of  the  Empire,  gives  a  sig- 
nificant hint  of  the  troubles  that  recurred  throughout 
the  imperial  history  whenever  the  hand  at  the  center 
weakened  in  its  grasp,  and  which  finally  led  to  disrup- 
tion and  decay. 
\  Conquest  is  originally  based  on  force,  but  unadulter- 

ated force  is  never  a  permanent  basis  of  social  life. 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  137 

The  ruler  must  at  least  clothe  himself  with  the  garb 
of  justice  or  utility.  He  finds  possibly  a  religious 
title,  whether  in  the  sanctity  of  his  line  or  in  the  ordinance 
of  God.  In  the  lower  order  of  such  societies,  as  we  have 
seen,  he  is  himself  God,  or  of  the  lineage  of  God, like  the 
Pharaohs.  At  a  higher  remove,  as  with  the  absolute 
monarchs  of  western  civilization,  he  is  God's  Anointed, 
he  rules  by  Divine  Rights  It  is  rarely  the  case,  as  in 
India,  that  a  priestly  caste  maintains  the  supremacy 
and  guarantees  the  authority  of  the  king,  as  it  were, 
from  above  and  not  from  below.  But  under  whatever 
form,  the  tendency  of  this  kind  of  social  order  is  to 
transmute  force  into  authority.  The  king  governs, 
it  may  be,  —  as  in  the  Chinese  theory,  —  for  the  good 
of  his  subjects,  but  it  is  he  who  knows  what  is  for  their 
good.  He  is  the  fountain  of  justice,  the  pillar  of  the 
social  order,  the  source  of  every  law  and  ordinance. 

The  ideas  underlying  the  social  fabric  are  modified 
in  correspondence  with  this  conception.  In  the  primi- 
tive community  custom  was  sacred  because  it  was  cus- 
tom, and  because  of  certain  sanctions,  religious  and  magi- 
cal, attending  on  its  violation.  In  the  more  elaborate 
and  advanced  societies  the  rule  of  primitive  custom 
is  in  some  measure  broken  up.  Law  is  no  longer  the 
direct,  naive  expression  of  the  popular  life.     It  is  in" 

'^truth  at  this  stage,  what  some  jurists  have  mistakenly 
supposed  it  to  be  in  its  essential  nature,  a  conamand 
imposed  by  a  superior  upon  an  inferior  and  enforced 

_by  him  through  the  medium  of  punishment.  And 
it  should  be  understood  that  the  principle  of  subordi- 
nation is  not  confined  to  the  relation  of  governing  and 
governed;  it  may  run  through  th^  whole  social  life. 


138     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

We  may  have  a  feudal  hierarchy  of  lord  and  vassal, 
descending  from  the  king  to  the  lowest  subject.  We 
may  have  a  hierarchy  of  castes,  as  in  India,  or  we  may 
have  an  industrial  system  based  on  the  relation  of 
master  and  slave,  or  in  the  more  mitigated  form  of 
that  of  lord  and  serf,  and  we  may  have  this  principle  of 
subordination  maintaining  itself  in  the  midst  of  higher 
social  life  in  the  more  or  less  modified  forms  familiar 
to  ourselves,  in  distinctions  of  class  and  in  conceptions 
of  social,  political,  or  economic  inferiority. 

At  the  same  time  it  should  be  noted  that  the  trans- 
mutation of  force  into  authority  may  have  its  good 
side.  The  absolute  monarch  may  be  in  fact  as  well  as 
in  name  the  father  of  his  people.  He  can  often  secure 
a  better  social  order,  and  even  a  higher  degree  of  justice, 
than  can  be  achieved  in  the  primitive  society  of  the  kin- 
dred. The  very  fact  that  he  is  raised  above  the  body 
of  his  subjects  may  enable  him  to  deal  with  them  im- 
partially ;  while  by  the  same  supremacy  he  may  over- 
come the  discords  of  nobles,  suppress  feudal  strife,  and 
weld  a  great  people  into  a  single  nation.  In  such  a 
nation  there  is  a  sense  of  solidarity  which  allows  a 
higher  principle  to  come  into  being,  of  which  we  shall 
speak  a  Httle  later  on. 

But  observe  first  that  the  authoritarian  order  has 
its  own  moral  code,  a  code  which  is  not  perfect,  but  by 
no  means  to  be  despised.  If  the  superior  has  privileges, 
he  has  also  duties.  According  to  the  Chinese  teachers, 
the  emperor  is  the  last  person  in  the  state  to  be  con- 
sidered. In  Ancient  Babylon  a  nobleman,  who  was 
tormented  by  evil  spirits,  was  asked  by  the  exorciser 
among  other  things,  whether  he  had  done  his  duty  to 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  139 

his  dependents,  whether  he  had  bound  men  who  should 
have  been  free,  or  left  those  in  prison  whom  he  should 
have  liberated.  In  Ancient  Egypt  kings  and  governors 
never  fail  to  take  credit  to  themselves  in  funeral  in- 
scriptions for  their  beneficence  and  kindness  of  heart 
to  those  whom  they  had  ruled.  Of  the  duties  that  are 
inculcated  under  this  head  by  the  higher  religions  it  is 
needless  to  speak.  All  that  must  be  said  is  that,  excel- 
lent as  these  qualities  are,  they  are  relative  to  a  social 
system  which  creates  the  necessity  for  them  by  its 
own  inherent  defects.  Benevolence  is  beautiful,  but  it 
is  not  based  on  justice,  nor  is  the  ''Lady  Bountiful" 
the  last  word  of  progress  in  ethics  and  civiUzation. 
Religion  and  ethics,  like  government,  have  their  ''au- 
thoritarian" phase  —  the  phase  in  which  they  are  con- 
ceived as  imposed  from  above  and  embodied  in  a 
hierarchy,  and  in  which  their  most  characteristic  teach- 
ing is  to  inculcate  the  virtues  of  meekness  and  obedi- 
ence on  the  one  side,  and  on  the  other  gentleness  and 
forbearance  in  the  use  of  that  power  which  they  con- 
secrate with  lawful  authority. 

The  Principle  of  Citizenship 

The  authority  of  the  superior  is  not  the  only  method 
of  organizing  a  large  territory  and  maintaining  order 
and  harmony  among  a  large  population.  There  is  an 
alternative  known  to  the  civilized,  though  hardly  to 
the  savage  and  barbarian  world,  in  which  the  relation 
of  government  and  governed  are  in  a  manner  inverted. 
(The  people,  or  at  any  rate  the  citizens,  are  the  state. 
The  government  is  their  servant  rather  than  their  mas- 


\ 


140     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

f  ter,  and  its  members  are  as  much  bound  by  law  as  the 

humblest  subject  of  the  state.  The  social  bond  in  this 
case  may  often  be  reinforced  by  a  somewhat  vague  and 
extended  sense  of  relationship,  by  a  common  language, 
and  by  all  the  complex  relations,  so  difficult  to  define 
and  analyze,  that  constitute  a  common  nationality. 
But  the  civic  bond  as  such  is  not  the  same  thing  as 
the  link  of  language  or  nationality.  It  consists  essen- 
tially in  a  certain  reciprocity  of  obligation  as  between 
the  individual  members  of  the  state,  and  also  as  be- 
tween the  state  and  its  members;  In  some  respects 
the  state  —  to  give  that  name  to  the  social  union  based 
on  citizenship  —  resembles  the  earlier  commune.  Its 
government,  its  laws  and  customs,  come  again  into  close 
relation  with  the  actual  life  and  character  of  the  people. 
Law  is  no  longer  a  command  imposed  by  a  superior,  but 
an  expression  of  the  will  of  those  who  will  obey  it.  So 
far  as  the  principle  of  citizenship  is  carried  through,  there 
is  a  return  to  a  certain  equality  among  members  of 
the  state,  replacing  the  hierarchical  order  of  the  authori- 
tarian society,  and  recalling  the  equality  of  primitive 
times.  But  the  resemblances  are  analogical  rather 
than  morphological.  There  is  all  the  difference  in 
the  world  between  an  equality  which  rests  on  a 
recognition  of  reciprocal  obligations  overriding  pre- 
eminence of  power,  and  one  which  subsists  merely  be- 
cause no  power  has  risen  to  an  eminence  which  could 
disturb  it.  There  is  no  less  difference  between  a  body 
of  custom  which  expresses  the  life  and  character  of  a  so- 
ciety, —  in  the  sense  that  it  forms  the  framework  sub- 
sisting unchanged  through  ages  into  which  each  new  gen- 
eration fits  itself  automatically,  accepting  what  it  finds 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  141 

without  question,  —  and  the  laws  which  a  changing  and") 
developing  society  makes  and  remakes  with  a  conscious  J 
sense  of  its  needs.  There  is  no  less  difference  between 
the  member  of  a  clan  whose  rights  and  responsibilities 
are  fixed  by  his  place  in  the  clan  and  the  individual 
who  can  shape  his  own  life  and  whose  rights  and  respon- 
sibilities are  determined  principally  by  his  own  actions 
and  agreements.  The  fully  responsible  individual,  on 
^he  one  side,  and  the  legislative  government  expressing 
the  will  of  the  majority,  on  the  other,  are  the  charac- 
teristics of  the  state. 

Now  the  principle  of  citizenship  may  be  carried  out 
with  very  varying  degrees  of  thoroughness.  It  is  com- 
plicated by  questions  of  kinship,  race,  and  nationality, 
and  it  is  in  practice  blended  in  greater  or  lesser  degree 
with  the  principle  of  authority.  Further,  the  life  of 
the  state  depends  a  good  deal  on  the  area  which  it 
covers,  and  is  gravely  affected  by  its  external  relations. 
These  considerations  go  far  to  determine  the  actual 
character,  the  forms,  and  the  life  of  the  state  as  we  see 
them  in  history.  The  earliest  form  of  the  state  known 
/to  us  is  the  city  state  of  ancient  Greece.  Here  the 
!  typical  state  was  a  fortified  town  of  moderate  and  often 
,  of  very  small  dimensions  according  to  our  standards,  oc- 
cupying a  strong  position  in  a  strip  of  territory  belonging 
to  and  cultivated  by  its  citizens.  But  even  in  this  small 
community  the  principle  of  citizenship  was  not  pushed 
through.  In  most  states  a  considerable  part  of  the  pop- 
ulation were  either  slaves,  as  at  Athens,  or  formed  a  ser- 
^vile  caste  like  the  Helots  at  Sparta,  and  whatever  rights 
were  secured  to  the  slaves  by  law,  custom,  or  religion, 
they  were  certainly  in  no  sense  citizens. 


142     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

So  far  the  despotic  principle  remained  vigorous  and 
living  within  the  system  of  the  free  community.  But 
in  many  states  there  were  further  gradations  among 
the  free  men  themselves.  There  were  close  oligarchies, 
like  those  of  Thebes  and  Sparta,  to  whose  members 
alone  the  privileges  of  government  were  confined,  while 
the  rest  of  the  population,  though  personally  free, 
like  the  Spartan  Perioeci,  or  the  Roman  plebs,  were 
citizens  only  in  the  passive  sense.  Yet  we  should 
not  deny  the  name  of  state  to  these  oligarchical  repub- 
lics. The  difference  that  separated  them  from  the 
slave-holding  democracy  of  Athens  was  more  one  of 
degree  than  of  principle.  The  circle  of  the  aristocracy 
formed  internally  a  true  state,  but  a  state  which  had 
dependents  which  it  governed  despotically.  The  break^ 
ing  down  of  class  barriers  and  the  extension  of  political  I 
and  civic  rights  which  makes  up  a  large  part  of  the 
history  of  Athens,  of  Rome,  and  of  modern  European 
-nations  is  simply  a  development  of  the  principle  of 
citizenship  at  the  expense  of  the  principle  of  authority, 
until  ideally  it  is  extended  to  all  permanent  residents^ 
in  the  territory. 

The  city  state  of  the  ancients  proved  incapable  of 
expansion.  Democratic  Athens  governed  her  short- 
lived empire  with  reckless  despotism,  and  the  jealousies 
and  resentments  which  she  excited  ruined  the  noblest 
city  of  Greece.  The  extension  of  the  Roman  suffrage 
as  Rome  consolidated  her  conquest  was  a  beneficent 
admission  of  a  wide  circle  to  civic  rights,  but  reduced 
the  constitutional  machinery  of  Rome  to  a  farce. 
Citizens  from  all  parts  of  Italy  could  not  meet  in  the 
forum  to  elect  consuls  or  pass  a  law,  and  the  representa- 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STAJE  143 

tive  method  was  not  thought  of  till  the  Republic  was 
already  dead.  I  will  not  speak  here  of  the  medi£eval 
city  states,  with  their  checkered  but  often  glorious 
history,  but  will  pass  at  once  to  the  country  states  of 
the  modern  world,  and  will  confine  myself  to  noting  two 
points  of  difference.  Through  the  principle  of  repre-j/^ 
"sentation,  and  often  aided  by  the  consolidation  pre- 
viously effected  by  an  absolute  monarchy,  the  modern 
state  has  largely  solved  the  problem  of  uniting  large 
areas  and  great  populations  on  the  basis  of  common 
citizenship ;  and  owing  to  the  disappearance  of  slavery 
"and  serfdom  among  white  peoples  has  had  no  such  sharp 
demarcations  of  free  and  unfree  to  overcome.  Hence 
within  its  borders  the  principle  of  citizenship  is  in  a 
fair  way  to  be  carried  to  its  conclusion.  Yet  the  old 
problems  revive /^it  in  a  new  form.  On  the  one  hand, 
"modern  economic  conditions  engender  inequalities  of 
wealth  and  foster  forms  of  industrial  organization  which 
constantly  threaten  to  reduce  political  and  civic  equality 
.to  a  meaningless  form  of  words.  On  the  other  hand,' 
within  its  borders  the  state  through  its  very  size  finds 
itself  frequently  confronted  with  problems  of  race 
and  nationality,  which  sometimes  threaten  its  funda- 
'mental  principles,  while  without  it  is  usually  encumbered 
with  dependencies,  to  which  it  seldom  scruples  to  add 
when  occasion  serves.  Of  the  economic  problems  I 
shall  speak  later,  but  on  the  question  of  dependencies 
and  of  nationality  a  word  must  be  said  as  bearing 
directly  on  the  principles  of  government. 

The  conquest  of  a  territory  by  force  and  its  retention 
without  regard  to  the  wishes  of  the  inhabitants  is  of 
course  in  flat  contradiction  with  all  the  principles  of 


144     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

citizenship.     The   democratic   state   which    sends   an 
autocratic   governor  to  rule    a    great   dependency  is 
employing  two  distinct  methods  of  rule,  one  for  use  at 
home,  the  other  for  use  abroad.     My  own  country  mayl 
/  be  regarded  internally  as  a  qualified  democracy.     The 
/  British  Empire  as  a  whole  is  as  much  an  oligarchy  I 
{    as  Sparta.     The  Indians  are  its  Perioeci,  and  perhaps  | 
\  the    Kaffirs    its    Helots.     The    government  of    white  J 
people  by  this  method  has,  however,  been  abandoned. 
I  It  was  virtually  destroyed  by  the  American  Revolution, 
and  the  renewed  experiment  in  this  direction  may  be 
said  to  have  been  brought  to  a  conclusion  when  au- 
tonomy was  extended  to  the  Transvaal  and  the  Orange 
^  Colony.     The  despotic  principle  tends  now  to  coincide 
/     with  the  color  line,  and  much  of  the  future  of  the 
modem  state,  particularly  of  my  own  country,  must 
depend  on  the  relation  of  the  white  to  the  colored  and 
non-European  races.     Until  the  rise  of  Japan  as  a  mod- 
ern power,  it  was  almost  universally  believed  that  the 
characteristics  of  European  civilization  were  a  monop- 
oly of  race,  and  that  whether  we  liked  it  or  not,  non- 
European  peoples  were  forever  destined  to  a  type  of 
civilization   and   a  form  of    government   totally   dif- 
ferent from  ours.     Probably  the  greatest  social  change 
now  in  progress  in   the  world  is  the  rise  of  a  new 
spirit  in  the  East  which  altogether  repudiates  this  view, 
and   the   reaction  of   these   changes   upon   the  West 
will,  I  am  convinced,  if  met  in  a  statesmanlike  spirit, 
be  bracing  and  beneficial.     We  are  not,  however,  con- 
cerned with  speculation  as  to  the  future.     We  have  only 
to  note  the  fact  that  as  it  stands  the  principle  of  citizen- 
ship is  crossed  in  the  empire  states  of  our  own  time  with 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  145 

that  of  the  authoritative  government  of  dependencies/^ 
and  that  this  fact  has  important  reaction  on  our  owi 
_domestic  constitution.  We  cannot  deny  principles 
of  Uberty  to  Orientals,  or  for  that  matter  to  Zulus,  and 
yet  maintain  them  with  the  same  fervor  and  conviction 
for  the  benefit  of  any  one  who  may  be  oppressed  among 
ourselves.  We  cannot  foster  a  great  bureaucratic 
class  without  being  impregnated  at  home  by  its  views 
of  government.  We  cannot  protect  a  great  dependency 
from  without  except  b^  remaining  a  great  military 
and  naval  power ;  and  to  all  these  necessities  our  own 
body  social  must  accommodate  itself. 

Mutatis  mutandis,  the  same  remarks  apply  to  the 
foreign  relations  of  the  modern  state.  More  and  more, 
as  means  of  communication  multiply,  the  fate  of  each 
state  is  bound  up  with  that  of  others,  and  the  attitude 
of  hostility  still  characteristic  of  the  modern  world 
threatens  the  healthy  internal  development  of  each 
member  of  the  community  of  nations.  If  a  nation  may 
sometimes  be  consolidated  by  fear  of  an  aggressor,  it 
is  consolidated  as  an  armed  camp,  and  its  military 
organization  tends  to  bring  it  back  to  the  authoritarian 
form ;  the  taxable  resources  of  the  community  are  ex- 
pended on  the  means  of  defense  or  aggression ;  and  the 
interests  of  the  public  are  diverted  from  the  improve- 
ment of  social  relations,  not  by  wars,  but  by  ever- 
renewed  rumors  of  war.  On  this  side,  then,  the 
development  of  the  civic  principle  seems  bound  up 
with  internationalism,  and  with  a  readjustment  in  the 
great  empires  of  the  relation  of  governing  state  and 
dependencies. 

Within  the  state  is  apt  to  arise  the  even  more  dif- 


146     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

ficult  problem  of  nationality.  It  is  in  this  form  that 
the  principle  of  kinship  is  mainly  to  be  reckoned  with 
as  a  poUtical  force  in  the  modern  world.  Nationality^I 
indeed,  is  not  properly  a  matter  of  race.  Most  of 
the  bodies  of  people  which  feel  themselves  to  be  nations 
are  of  highly  complex  racial  origin.  Yet  the  sentiment 
of  nationality  is  confessedly  analogous  to  that  of 
kinship :  it  is  a  natural  unity  stronger  in  the  fact 
than  in  the  logical  analysis,  a  composite  effect  of  lan- 
guage, tradition,  religion,  and  manners  which  makes 
certain  people  feel  themselves  at  one  with  each  other 
\  and  apart  from  the  rest  of  the  world.  Pride  and  self- 
respect  are  closely  bound  up  with  it)  and  to  destroy  a 
nationality  is  in  a  degree  to  wound  the  pride  and  lower 
the  manhood  of  those  who  adhere  to  it.  Analyze^ 
it  away  as  we  may,  it  remains  a  great  force,  and  those 
states  which  are  rooted  in  national  unity  have  in  them 
a  great  living  power  which  will  carry  them  through  much 
adversity.  But  few  states  are  fortunate  enough  to  be 
one  in  nationality,  and  the  problem  of  dealing  with  the 
minority  nation  is  the  hardest  that  statesmen  have 
to  solve.  Clearly  it  is  not  achieved  by  equality  of  fran- 
chise. The  smaller  nationality  does  not  merely  want 
equal  rights  with  others.  It  stands  out  for  a  certain 
life  of  its  own.  The  endeavor  to  suppress  it  ends 
invariably  in  the  withholding  of  some  of  the  general 
civic  rights  which  are  fundamental  to  the  state  system, 
and  in  this  sense  unreconciled  nationalities  are  a  standing 
danger  to  the  civic  principle.  To  find  the  place  for 
national  rights  within  the  unity  of  the  state,  to  give 
scope  to  national  differences  without  destroying  the 
organization  of  a  life  which  has  somehow  to  be  lived 


THE  GROWTH  OF  THE  STATE  147 

in  common,  is  therefore  the  problem  which  the  modern 
state  has  to  solve  if  it  is  to  maintain  itself.  It  hasr 
not  only  to  generalize  the  common  rights  of  citizenship 
as  applied  to  individuals,  but  to  make  room  for  diversity 
and  give  scope  for  collective  sentiments  which  in  a 
measure  conflict  with  one  another.  How  far  it  will 
succeed  is  again  matter  of  speculation,  and  as  such 
beyond  the  subject  of  our  immediate  inquiry,  the  object 
of  which  is  merely  to  indicate  to  what  extent  the  prin- 
ciple of  citizenship  has"  in  fact  been  carried  in  the 
modern  world  and  what  are  its  principal  limitations. 

If  we  put  together  the  heads  of  this  necessarily  rough    C\. , 
sketch,  we  can,  I  think,  trace  the  lines  of  a  significant  '     — - 
development.     At  the  basis  we  have  the  ties  of  kinship 
engendering  the  close  association  of  the  small  local  group  / 
and  at  a  higher  stage  of  the  firmly  knit  clan,  within  the  JU 
somewhat  larger  but  looser  unity  of  the  tribe.     Such 
associations  may  have  much  vital  force,  compactness, 
and  endurance,  but  they  are  narrow  and  in  proportion 
to  their  strength  tend  to  be  hard,  self-contained,  and 
mutually  hostile.     They  are,  moreover,  adapted  only  to 
rude  economic  conditions  and  a  rudimentary  condition 
of  the  arts  of  life.     Hence,  they  yield  with  advancing 
civilization  to  the  rule  of  force  by  which,  in  the  guise  of  3 
kingly  authority,  far  larger  aggregations  of  men  can  be 
held  together  and  a  more  regular  order  can  be  main- 
tained.    In  this  change  there  is  loss  and  gain,  gain  in  the 
development  of  order,  loss  in  the  suppression  of  much 
that  is  essential  to  humanity.     On  the  other  hand,  the 
principle  of  citizenship  renders  possible  a  form  of  union 
as  vital,  as  organic,  as  the  clan  and  as  wide  as  the  em-  ^ 
pire,  while  it  adds  a  measure  of  freedom  to  the  constitu- 


0 


148     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

ent  parts  and  an  elasticity  to  the  whole  which  are  pe- 
culiarly its  own.  Further,  when  pushed  to  its  conclusion, 
it  reveals  the  possibility  of  a  world  state  in  which  the 
constituent  groups,  as  well  as  the  constituent  individuals, 
would  have  legitimate  scope  for  self-development.     To 

''^say  that  such  a  state  is  actually  in  the  making  would 
be  rather  to  give  utterance  to  a  sanguine  view  than  to 
rehearse  the  indubitable  facts  which  are  the  subject 

^matter  of  science.  But  to  say  that  the  modern  world  as 
it  stands  affords  the  conditions  rendering  such  a  state 
possible,  and  that  there  are  important  factors  in  the 
social  mind  working  towards  it  is  to  keep  within  the 

'^limit  of  fact.  Now  we  cannot  say  of  humanity  as  a 
whole  that  it  began  with  the  system  of  kinship,  passed 
into  that  of  authority,  and  ended  with  that  of  citizen- 
ship. At  most  this  might  be  said  of  certain  societies, 
and  of  these  the  civic  societies  of  antiquity  lost  their 

^^preeminence  and  fell  into  decay.  What  we  can  say  is 
that  the  system  of  kinship  is  dominant  in  the  lower  and 
earlier  stages  o#  culture,  that  the  system  of  authority  is 
characteristic  of  the  advance  towards  civilization,  and 
that  of  citizenship  of  the  higher  civilization.     It  is,  of 

^course,  possible  that  the  civic  systems  of  the  present  day 
may  decay  like  those  of  antiquity,  but  taking  it  as  it 
stands,  the  characteristic  modern  state,  with  all  its  im- 
perfections, exhibits  the  most  complete  reconciliation 
yet  achieved  on.  the  large  scale  of  social  cooperation 
with  the  freedom  and  spontaneity  of  the  component 
individuals,  localities,  and  nationalities. 


CHAPTER   VII 

Evolution  and  Progress 

The  evolution  of  the  state  sufficiently  illustrates  the 
general  character  of  the  movement  with  which  we  have 
to  deal,  and  the  difficulties  which  it  presents  to  the 
inquirer  who  seeks  to  determine  its  direction  and  extent. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  movement  is  not  direct,  but  emi- 
nently tortuous.  This  in  two  ways.  Even  if  it  were 
true  that  humanity  as  a  whole,  or  every  distinct  human 
society,  passed  through  the  three  phases  that  have  been 
distinguished,  it  would  be  impossible  to  conceive  the 
development  as  the  working  out  of  a  single  principle. 
On  the  contrary,  the  order  and  the  extension  introduced 
by  the  principles  of  force  and  authority  tend  to  cancel 
and  obliterate  much  that  is  distinctive  and  vital  in  the 
simpler  life  of  clan  and  commune,  while  the  principle  of 
citizenship  is  opposed  in  fundamentals  to  that  of  force. 
The  utmost  that  can  be  said  is  that  the  civic  state  can  in 
its  fullest  and  widest  development  make  a  synthesis  of, 
the  elements  contributed  to  social  life  by  the  earlier  f  ormsj 
of  organization,  and  can  make  use  of  them  for  its  own 
ends  and  subject  to  the  control  of  the  ethical  conceptions 
on  which  it  rests.  So  far,  we  might  conceive  the  modern^ 
fstate  as  emerging  out  of  earlier  forms  by  a  union  of  ' 
1  elements  which  in  them  were  divided  and  therefore  one- 
;  sided.  But  we  could  not  possibly  ascribe  such  a  syn- 
^  thesis  to  any  inherent  historic  tendency  in  the  nature  of 

149 


150     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND   POLITICAL  THEORY 

society  as  such.  For  we  find  no  regularity  in  the  matter. 
Many  societies  have  never  advanced  beyond  the  prin- 
ciple of  kinship ;  many  others  remain  organized  on  an  au- 
thoritarian basis.  The  state  has  come  into  existence 
several  times,  and  in  very  different  forms,  and  has  sel- 
dom if  ever  been  based  on  the  pure  principle  of  citizenship 
consistently  applied.  There  is  not,  in  fact,  one  move- 
ment, but  many  movements,  and  these  impinge  on  one 
another,  sometimes  perhaps  to  reinforce  one  another, 
but  more  often  to  deflect  or  even  to  cancel.  The  ut- 
most we  can  say  of  the  whole  is  that  when  all  is  summed 
up  there  has  been  a  resultant  movement  which  has  in 
/fact  given  us  the  modern  state  as  the  dominant  type  of 
society  in  the  dominant  peoples  of  the  modern  world. 

But  this  does  not  end  the  matter.  The  modern  state 
is  not  a  fixed  and  crystallized  type,  exhibiting  a  single 
principle  of  construction  consistently  carried  through. 
On  the  contrary,  our  account  of  it  could  not  be  carried 
beyond  the  most  elementary  abstractions  without  refer- 
ence to  a  host  of  unsettled  questions.  The  state  as  we 
know  it  is  not  a  solution,  but  a  problem,  not  a  fixed  point 
that  has  been  attained,  but  a  movement.  Its  history 
ends  for  us  in  a  question.  This  question,  moreover,  in- 
volves a  philosophy,  and  that  alone  would  explain  why 
the  study  of  the  facts  in  sociology  forces  us,  even  against 
our  will,  into  philosophical  inquiries. 

Now  if  we  were  to  take  other  departments  of  social 
evolution,  we  should  find  very  similar  results.  Sup- 
pose, for  example,  we  were  to  take  the  idea  of  justice, 
and  consider  it  first  on  the  side  of  the  treatment  of  the 
offender.  We  should  find  the  idea  of  suppression  operat- 
ing in  a  few  exceptional  cases  from  a  very  early  stage, 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  151 

and  extending  itself  in  close  connection  with  the  growth 
of  the  principle  of  authority  into  a  theory  of  punishment, 
tending  to  become  more  severe  and  even  more  brutal 
as  the  social  order  consoUdates  itself,  but  finally  beginning 
to  yield  to  principles  of  prevention  and  cure  as  the  au- 
thoritarian conception  gives  way  to  that  of  common 
citizenship.  Side  by  side  with  this  line  of  development, 
we  should  find  the  idea  of  retaliation,  at  first  distinct 
from  that  of  suppression^  and  then  blending  with  it  to 
sharpen  the  point  of  vindictiveness  in  punishment,  and 
then  again  confined  within  the  limits  of  compensation  or 
restitution.  Once  again  the  history,  by  no  means  simple 
or  straightforward  in  itself,  would  end  in  the  imperfectly 
solved  problems  of  criminology.  Or  we  might  take  jus- 
tice in  its  other  and  milder  aspect,  as  the  means  of  main- 
taining right  and  redressing  wrong ;  and  here  we  should 
note  how  redress  from  being  a  matter  for  the  injured  in- 
dividual, becomes  a  concern  of  the  kindred  and  the  clan, 
and  finally  of  the  impartial  authority  of  law  and  govern- 
ment. So  far  the  element  of  progress  is  sufficiently 
clear.  But  if  we  turn  to  the  question  what  rights  so- 
ciety acknowledges  and  enforces,  we  should  come  once 
again  on  great  irregularities  of  development.  The 
equality  of  primitive  society  gives  place  to  a  hierarchi- 
cal subordination  as  the  authoritarian  principle  devel- 
ops, while  this  again  yields  to  a  reestablishment  of  equal 
rights  in  correlation  with  the  principle  of  citizenship. 
But,  once  again,  we  should  end  in  a  series  of  questions. 
What  does  equality  mean  ?  Is  it  a  logically  coherent, 
practically  workable  conception  ?  How  is  it  to  be  de- 
fined, and  is  it  in  effect  realized  under  modern  conditions? 
Thus  the  actual  movement  of  society  is  both  irregular 


152     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

and  incomplete.  It  yields  no  assured  social  harmony. 
The  question  is  whether  it  does,  upon  the  whole,  tend  to 
realize  the  conditions  out  of  which  when  complete  a 
harmony  would  emerge.  Is  there  among  the  changes 
that  we  note  a  gradual  evolution  of  these  conditions, 
or  is  an  advance  in  one  respect,  at  one  period  or  in 
one  society,  balanced  by  losses  in  other  respects,  at  other 
periods  or  in  other  societies  ?  The  answer  is  not  simple, 
but  upon  the  whole  it  is  in  one  respect  negative  and  in 
another  positive.  Progress  so  conceived  is  not  continu- 
ous, but  within  the  area  covered  by  our  investigation  it 
is  real,  and  in  fact  fundamental. 

Thus,  if  we  compare  the  first  and  last  terms  of  the 
series,  we  recognize  a  series  of  changes  of  fundamental 
importance  for  the  advancement  of  true  social  coopera- 
tion. We  note  first  the  extension  of  order,  the  widening 
of  the  social  unit  from  the  primitive  local  group  outwards, 
until  for  certain  purposes  it  begins  to  extend  itself  to 
the  whole  of  mankind.  We  note  next  the  increased 
firmness  and  solidity  of  this  order,  the  evolution  of  im- 
partial justice,  which  is  the  basis  of  all  healthy  social 
union,  and  its  extension  till  it  grasps  the  whole  of  the 
community  under  a  common  rule.  We  find  the  concep- 
tion of  a  comjnon  life  advanced  by  the  destruction  of  the 
manifold  forms  of  group  morality,  giving  place  to  the 
principle  of  full  membership  of  the  extended  community 
for  all  who  dwell  within  its  borders.  We  find  at  the  same 
time  a  more  hberal  provision  for  the  free  movement 
and  spontaneous  effort  of  the  constituent  parts  of  the 
community,  giving  concrete  reality  to  the  principle  that 
the  most  stable  order  is  that  which  is  based  upon  free- 
dom.   We  find  a  more  general  enforcement  of  mutual 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  153 

forbearance,  combined  with  a  wider  and  richer  develop- 
ment of  mutual  aid.  Such  are  some  of  the  results 
which  strike  us  when  we  compare  the  highest  with 
the  lowest  terms  of  our  series.  When  we  look  at  the 
intermediate  terms,  we  see  that  the  process  of  advance  is 
not  simple  and  continuous.  We  have  repeatedly  seen 
that  development  in  one  direction  has  entailed  arrest  in 
another.  We  have  seen,  for  example,  that  the  familiar 
antithesis  between  order  and  liberty  is  not  wholly  desti- 
tute of  historical  justification.  We  have  seen  that  the 
rise  and  extension  of  authority  might  destroy  much  of 
the  rude  vigor  of  a  simple  community,  or  at  a  later 
stage  extinguish  the  Ught  of  civic  freedom.  Similarly 
we  can  see  how  the  maintenance  of  order  may  be 
secured  by  harshness  of  procedure  and  cruelty  in  pun- 
ishment. We  can  see  how  the  growth  of  society  may 
foster  inequaUty  and  depress  the  position  of  those  who 
do  its  manual  work ;  at  the  same  time  we  can  see  how 
with  the  growth  of  the  social  mind  there  comes  a  con- 
scious effort  to  rectify  these  evils.  We  see  in  a  word, 
that,  while  certain  essential  conditions  of  harmony  have 
been  realized,  the  problem  as  a  whole  has  not  been 
solved.  The  work  of  progress  is  on  every  side  un- 
finished. It  is  not  a  crystallized  product,  but  some- 
thing left  in  solution. 

By  extending  our  investigations  very  similar  results 
could  be  shown  to  obtain  over  a  wide  range  of  human 
activity  in  thought,  in  religion,  in  law,  in  ethics,  in  poli- 
tics, and  in  industry.  We  cannot  say  that  each  institu- 
tion passes  continuously  from  lower  to  higher  phases. 
We  can  say  that  at  each  point  in  the  range  of  survey  we 
find  forms  implying  a  germinal  condition  of  the  social 


154     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND   POLITICAL  THEORY 

mind,  and  forms  implying  the  relative  maturity  of  the 
social  mind ;  we  can  say  that  the  low  forms  coexist  in 
the  societies  which  appear  nearest  to  the  primitive  type 
of  human  life,  and  that  in  the  characteristic  modern 
societies,  notwithstanding  all  imperfections,  the  highest 
types  coexist,  some  in  maturity,  others  in  process  of  for- 
mation. We  can  show  that,  while  at  certain  stages  there 
is  opposition  between  one  condition  of  development 
and  another,  —  which  is  a  chief  cause  of  the  irregularity 
which  we  find,  —  in  the  long  run  and  at  a  greater  depth 
there  is  harmony,  and  this  harmony  asserts  itself  the 
more  as  the  development  of  the  social  mind  proceeds. 
We  are  thus  able  at  once  to  understand  the  slowness  and 
uncertainty  of  social  progress  and  to  establish  the  con- 
ception of  its  ultimate  reality,  on  the  level,  at  any  rate 
of  a  hypothesis  which  conforms  to  a  wide  range  of  fact. 
I  must  not  now  attempt  to  cover  this  range  in  detail. 
Our  time  will  be  better  occupied  with  the  further  con- 
sideration of  the  problems  that  have  already  emerged. 
But  I  must  glance  for  a  moment  at  the  development  of] 
knowledge  and  thought.  This  development,  observe, 
is  essentially  a  social  phenomenon,  depending  as  it  does  * 
on  the  power  of  each  generation  to  make  use  of  the  ac- 
cumulated results  of  its  predecessors.  And  as  its  causes 
are  social,  so  also  are  its  effects.  It  is  from  our  present 
point  of  view  simply  the  effective  and  essential  psycho- 
logical basis  of  the  intelligent  direction  of  life.  This 
result  is  most  obvious  in  its  bearing  on  industrial  devel- 
opment, where  we  readily  trace  the  steps,  becoming  larger 
and  more  rapid  as  they  proceed,  towards  the  subdual  of 
external  and  physical  conditions  to  human  needs.  But 
in  the  deeper  regions  of  thought  and  philosophy  and  in 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  155 

religion  we  can  point  to  a  corresponding  development 
less  easy  to  formulate  in  terms  which  will  avoid  all  con- 
troversy, but  not  on  that  account  less  significant.  The 
comparative  study  of  ethico-religious  thought  reveals 
an  inner  movement  that  corresponds  in  the  main  with 
the  more  outward  changes  and  institutions  which  have 
been  sketched,  and  justifies  us  in  referring  them  not  to 
changes  of  outward  circumstance,  but  to  the  genuine 
growth  of  social  mind.  It  shows  how  the  vital  impulse 
of  human  thought  on  this  side  becomes  at  once  more 
personal  and  more  social,  more  personal  in  that  it  is 
recognized  that  both  religion  and  ethics  must  be  spon- 
taneous and  self-chosen  if  they  are  to  be  sincere,  more 
social  in  that  the  ideal  of  life  and  duty  which  they  uphold 
comes  to  be  more  and  more  consciously  dominated  by 
the  conception  of  the  individual  as  a  member  and  a  ser- 
vant of  the  single  society  of  mankind.  On  this  side,  in 
fact,  comparative  investigation  bears  witness  to  a  grad- 
ual revaluation  by  which  the  social  import  of  action  and 
of  character,  from  being  an  unrecognized  and  indirect 
condition,  emerges  into  the  position  of  the  acknowledged 
ultimate  standard  of  our  judgments  of  what  is  good  or 
bad,  right  or  wrong.  The  full  discussion  of  this  develop- 
ment would  lead  us  into  fundamental  questions  which  lie 
beyond  our  limits.  I  will  only  say  this  much.  The 
turning-point  in  the  evolution  of  thought,  as  I  conceive 
it,  is  reached  when  the  conception  of  the  development  of 
humanity  enters  into  explicit  consciousness  as  the  direct- 
ing principle  of  human  endeavor,  and,  in  proportion  as 
the  phrase  is  adequately  understood,  is  seen  to  include 
within  it  the  sum  of  human  purpose  in  all  its  manifold 
variety.    In  particular,  it  can  be  seen  to  be  the  concep- 


156     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND   POLITICAL  THEORY 

tion  necessary  to  give  consistency  and  unity  of  aim  to  the 
vastly  increased  power  of  controlling  the  conditions,  ex- 
ternal and  internal,  of  life,  which  the  advance  of  knowl- 
edge is  constantly  yielding  to  mankind. 

With  regard  to  the  interpretation  of  historic  progressT^ 
then,  our  case  stands  thus.     On  the  one  hand,  we  have 
traced  in  the  history  of  institutions  the  gradual  realiza- 
tion of  the  conditions  fundamental  to  true  and  full 
social  cooperation.     On  the  other  hand,  in  the  history  of 
thought  we  can  trace  the  extension  of  the  rational  control 
of  life  leading  up  to  the  conception  of  the  social  develop- 
ment of  humanity  as  the  guiding  principle  of  effort. 
But  if  this  is  so,  we  have  arrived  at  a  point  where  the 
devious  lines  of  social  progress  converge,  and  that  is  the 
point  at  which  they  become  united  by  entering  into 
the  consciousness  of  mankind.     If  we  put  the  question,  i 
''What  is  the  actual  result  of  historic  progress?"    the 
answer  is  in  outline  sufficiently  clear.     Progress  has  ; 
consisted  in  the  realization  of  the  conditions  of  full 
social  cooperation  and  in  the  extension  of  the  rational  ■ 
control  of  life.     But  the  whole  of  the  advance  actually  ; 
realized  now  assumes  the  aspect  of  a  merely  preparatory  ^ 
stage.     For  it  culminates,  as  its  lines  converge,  not  in  a 
sense  of  completeness,  but  in  the  formation  of  a  purpose 
—  the  purpose  of  carrying  forward  consciously  and  un- 
swervingly that  which  has  gone  on  in  unconscious,  broken, 
and  halting  fashion,  the  harmonious  development  of  the; 
social  life  of  mankind. 

This  result  enables  us  to  deal  with  a  problem  of  the 
first  importance  to  sociological  method,  and  that  is  why 
I  have  been  obliged  to  refer  to  it  here  in  a  fashion  so 
cursory  as  to  do  little  justice  to  its  value.     To  under- 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  157 

stand  the  problem,  we  may  suppose  a  critic  to  argue  in 
this  way.  "  I  will  grant  you,"  he  may  say,  "  for  the  sake 
of  argument,  that  you  have  established  a  certain  meas- 
ure of  social  progress  as  a  realized  fact.  But  what 
does  it  prove?  You  have  by  no  means  shown  that 
progress  is  the  law  of  Ufe.  On  the  contrary,  by  your 
own  admission,  it  is  not  even  continuous  within  the  area 
that  you  have  examined.  It  comes  in  occasional  spurts, 
succeeded  by  epochs  of  stagnation  and  decay,  and  if,  on 
the  whole,  the  successive  spurts  have  carried  modern 
society  a  little  further  than  earlier  societies,  what  is  this 
to  teach  us  as  to  the  future?  You  yourself  draw  a 
clear  distinction  between  the  trend  of  evolution  as  an 
observable  fact  and  a  law  of  evolution  resting  on  the 
permanent  conditions  of  social  life.  The  results  of  your 
comparative  investigation  may  have  given  us  the  former, 
but  they  cannot  yield  the  latter,  which  is  what  we 
really  want  to  know.  You  also  yourself  distinguished 
the  question  of  fact  from  the  question  of  value.  You 
showed  that  to  prove  that  society  has  moved  or  is  mov- 
ing on  certain  lines  is  nothing  to  the  point  if  we  would 
wish  to  know  whether  it  is  desirable  that  society  should 
move  on  certain  lines.  How,  then,  does  the  comparative 
method  serve  us  ?  If  it  neither  teaches  us  what  ought 
to  be  nor  what  will  be,  is  it  of  any  use  beyond  the  justifi- 
cation of  a  speculative  curiosit}^  ?  "  It  is  very  important 
to  come  to  an  understanding  on  this  point.  It  affects 
our  whole  attitude  to  the  teaching  of  history,  to  the  study 
of  contemporary  movements,  and  to  the  method  of  so- 
ciological investigation.  It  will  determine  whether  our 
method  is  to  be  inductive  or  deductive,  whether  it  is  to 
be  analytical  or  historical,  whether  it  is  to  be  guided  pri- 


158     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

marily  by  ethical  conceptions  or  a  study  of  empirical 
facts,  or  whether  it  is  to  combine  these  various  methods, 
and  if  so  in  what  way. 

Now  the  most  succinct  form  of  answer  that  can  be  pro- 
pounded may  be  put  in  this  way.  The  study  of  actual 
evolution  in  the  past  does  not  suffice  to  tell  us  with  cer- 
tainty either  what  ought  to  be  or  what  will  be,  but  it 
tells  us  what  may  be.  The  reply  emerges  from  the 
results  of  the  investigation  itself.     For  if  our  account  is 

'  correct,  it  exhibits  the  social  mind  as  gradually  arriving 
at  the  point  of  self-determination,  that  is  to  say,  at  the 
point  at  which  it  becomes  master  of  the  conditions  in- 
ternal and  external  of  its  own  movement.     But  if  this  is 

[  so,  two  results  follow.     On  the  one  hand,  if  conditions 

f  which  in  the  past  have  dominated  the  development  of 
mankind  can  be  intelligently  controlled,  they  will  no 
longer  dominate  it  in  the  same  way.  A  new  and  revo- 
lutionary factor  has  been  introduced,  and  the  course  of 
events  in  the  future  will  be  pro  tanto  unlike  the  course 
of  events  in  the  past.  On  the  other  hand,  the  general 
conditions  of  progress,  though  controllable,  are  still  opera- 
tive. Man  is  not  free  to  make  of  himself  whatever  he_ 
pleases.  The  artist  who  works  on  a  given  material 
may  have  perfect  mastery  of  his  material,  but  it  is  a  part 
of  his  mastery  to  know  what  can  and  what  cannot  be  done 
with  it.  Similarly,  if  we  suppose  the  most  perfect  insight 
\  into  social  conditions  and  the  most  complete  control  over 
them,  the  result  will  be  simply  the  most  perfect  under- 
standing of  what  we  can  and  of  what  we  cannot  do. 

^In  particular  we  want  to  know  whether  the  social  mind 
can  so  operate  upon  the  conditions  of  its  existence  as 
to  secure  a  more  complete  harmony.     On  this  point  our 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  159 

comparative  inquiry  gives  us  the  best  materials  for  a     I 
decision.    It  shows  us,  if  we  are  right  in  our  conclusions,      j 
that  when  all  is  said  and  done,  the  progress  made  in 
realizing  the  conditions  of  such  harmony  is  real  and  sub-      j 
stantial.     It  shows  also  that  the  conditions  of  further  ? 
progress  are  present.     That  is  to  say,  it  removes  the 
preliminary  doubt  whether  permanent  social  progress  is 
a  genuine  possibility  in  the  nature  of  things.     Such  a 
doubt  is  only  too  forcibly  suggested  by  many  of  the  un- 
deniable facts  of  human  history,  and  of  the  contempo- ■ 

rary  world.  It  is  impossible  to  shut  our  eyes  to  the  long  >  ^ 
periods  of  stagnation  and  retrogression  that  make  up  a 
great  part  of  recorded  history.  The  optimism  which 
sees  in  the  declining  ages  of  the  Lower  Empire  and  amid 
the  barbaric  anarchy  of  the  Merovingian  period  nothing 
but  the  birth  of  a  higher  order  does  not  represent  the 
balanced  mood  of  science.  Real  loss,  deep-seated  injury 
long  in  the  repairing  was  involved  in  the  break-up  of  the 
Roman  state,  as  earlier  in  the  destruction  of  Greek  free- 
dom and  later  in  the  decay  of  the  mediaeval  city.  No 
doubt  each  of  these  forms  of  social  organization  perished 
through  inherent  defects,  and  the  order  which  followed 
upon  them  had  virtues  of  its  own.  By  laying  stress  only ; 
on  the  faults  of  the  perishing  and  the  good  side  of  the 
new,  we  can  nurse  an  optimistic  belief  in  continuous  and 
inevitable  progress.  But  it  is  equally  open  to  another, 
who  prefers  to  nourish  a  more  melancholy  mood,  to  make 
a  reverse  selection  and  contemplate  the  tendencies  to 
corruption  and  failure  inherent  in  human  affairs.  But 
in  sociology  more  than  anywhere  else  the  difference 
between  the  scientific  and  the  rhetorical,  sentimental, 
or  popular  mode  of  treatment  consists  precisely  in  the 


I 


160     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

endeavor  to  look  at  things  as  a  whole  and  therefore  to  give 
due  thought  to  all  sides,  to  gain  as  well  as  to  loss,  to  loss 
as  well  as  to  gain.  From  such  a  view,  —  applied  as  dispas- 
sionately as  possible  throughout  the  field  of  human  so- 
ciety as  revealed  by  anthropological  inquiry  into  the 
condition  of  uncivilized  people,  —  and  by  the  historical 

V record  of  civilization,  two  results  appear  to  me  to  stand 
out  with  sufficient  clearness.  The  first  is  negative. 
The  theory  of  continuous  automatic  inevitable  progress 
is  impossible.  Assuming  that  progress  means  an  ad- 
vance towards  an  ideal  that  would. commend  itself  to  a 
rational  judgment  of  value,  it  is  impossible  to  maintain 
that  the  successive  steps  which  lead  from  savagery  to 
the  civilization  of  our  own  day  involve  point  by  point  a 
corresponding  betterment  in  the  actual  life  of  the  people 
as  a  whole.  The  slave  or  the  serf  of  the  middle  civiliza- 
tion compares  unfavorably  with  the  free  savage,  and 
even  the  low-grade  worker  of  our  own  days  does  not  in 
all  respects  come  happily  out  of  the  comparison.  With- 
out any  trace  of  rhetorical  exaggeration  or  of  sentimen- 
tal idealization  of  so-called  natural  conditions,  we  must 
admit  a  real  and  grave  loss  in  certain  elements  of  value 
when  we  compare  the  relative  concreteness  and  human 
interest  of  the  primitive  hunter's  life  with  the  mechanical 
drudgery  of  the  routine  of  unskilled  modern  labor. 
Moreover,  even  if  it  were  true  that  every  onward  step 
in  civilization  taken  by  itself  were  net  gain,  it  would 
still  be  untrue  to  suppose  that  humanity  as  a  whole 
had  always  gone  forward  in  civilization.  The  ad- 
vance has  been  greater  than  the  retrogression,  but 
there  has  been  true  retrogression  as  well.  Free  Athens 
did  not  perish  without  leaving  the  world  the  poorer. 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  161 

Much  was  saved  from  the  wreck,  but  the  loss  was  real, 
not  to  be  ignored. 

So  far  the  negative  view.     The  positive  result  that 
emerges  is  that  once  again,  when  we  take  the  same  com- 
prehensive survey  and  give  full  weight  to  all  the  con- 
siderations that  have  just  been  glanced  at,  the  advance  ' 
is  real,  and  what  is  more,  it  is  of  a  kind  to  prove  the  pos-  y 
sibility  of  a  far  more  substantial  and  unchallengeable;  ^ 
advance  in  the  future.     For  the  substance  of  the  ad- 
vance consists  precisely  in  the  evolution  of  a  higher  and  ^f 
more  comprehensive  social  mind,  and  when  this  is  taken 
as  the  central  fact  of  human  progress,  all  history  appears, 
in  Comte^^  phrasg^  as  a  preparatory  period.     It  is  the 
record  of  the  growth  of  mind  to  the  stage  of  unity  and 
self-consciousness  necessary  to  give  it  the  mastery  in  its 
own  house.     So  regarded,  the  history  of  the  social  mind 
takes  its  place  as  the  latest,  but  not  by  any  means  the   ! 
last  chapter  in  the  still  larger  history  of  mental  evolu- 
tion in  general,  the  process  by  which  mind  emerged  from 
rudimentary  beginnings  in  the  lower  organisms  to  the 
central  position  which  it  occupies  in  the  life  of  the  hu- 
man individual.    As  comparative  morphology  traces  the 
growth  of  the  eye  from  a  pigment  fleck  sensitive  to 
photo-chemical   stimulation    to    the  complex   organic 
structure  which  ranges  earth  and  heaven,  so  the  com-\\ 
parative  psychologist  traces  mind  from  the  first  stir-' 
rings  of  uneasy  feeling  prompting  physical  readjust- 
ments to  unpleasant  stimulus  to  the  mind  that  ranges 
the  circle  of  reality ;  and  the  social  psychologist  com- 
pletes the  work  by  tracing  the  building  up  of  that  far 
larger  unity  to  which  the  mind  of  the  individual  is 
related  as  a  cell  to  the  brain. 


162     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

Now  in  this  view  of  development  the  halting,  broken, 
and  uneven  nature  of  progress  becomes  readily  intelli- 
gible. The  control  of  mind  is  at  first  very  limited. 
The  animal  and  the  primitive  human  being  are  for  the 
most  part  the  sport  of  natural  conditions.  It  is  a  priori 
probable  that  the  more  advanced  type  should  be  swept 
away  over  and  over  again  by  physical  cataclysms,  by 
the  superior  brute  strength  of  lower  animals,  or  by  the 
mere  fecundity  of  noxious  micro-organisms  of  the  lowest 
type,  in  a  word,  by  natural  selection.  Such  catastrophes 
would  be  most  common  at  the  lowest  stages ;  and  in  fact, 
long  geological  periods  passed  before  the  higher  types 
of  animal  made  good  their  footing  upon  the  earth. 
Primitive  man  was  subject  to  fundamentally  similar 
conditions,  and  we  may  well  believe  that  the  slow  ad- 
vances which  we  trace  through  the  vast  extent  of  the 
Paleolithic  period  were  constantly  frustrated  by  the  sur- 
vival of  the  unfit.  If  the  men  of  the  reindeer  period, 
who  drew  the  mammoth,  and  with  roughly  pointed  flints 
carved  the  horse  on  bone  to  the  admiration  of  our  eth- 
nologists, disappeared  entirely  from  Europe,  they  only 
met  the  fate  which  has  over  and  over  again  befallen  the 
C^gher  type.  The  victory  is  not  to  the  best,  but  to  the 
y''  strongest,  and  it  is  not  till  the  best  becomes  the  strongest 
that  it  can  secure  the  permanence  of  its  type.  But  in 
proportion  as  the  social  mind  grows,  the  sphere  of  its 
control  expands.  One  by  one  it  becomes  master  of 
conditions  which  previously  held  it  in  thraldom.  It  is 
progressively  less  liable  to  destruction,  and  the  epochs  of 
history  grow  shorter.  In  the  uncertainty  of  geological 
measurements  it  is  useless  to  speak  in  terms  of  thou- 
sands or  tens  of  thousands  of  years,  but  the  NeoUthic 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  163 

period  is  admittedly  of  short  duration  compared  with  the 
successive  stages  of  the  PaleoUthic  epoch,  and  the  an- 
cient Oriental  civilizations  are  again  short-lived  in  com- 
parison. Yet  they  too  were  subject  to  successive  del- 
uges of  barbarism.  The  Hellenic  civilization,  with  all 
its  wonderful  achievement,  was  nothing  but  a  tiny  islet 
in  a  world  of  far  lower  culture ;  and  the  greatest  gift  of 
the  ruder  but  more  robust  Roman  to  the  world  lay  in 
this,  that  he  was  civilized  enough  to  recognize  Hellenic 
superiority.  Against  the  massive  influences  of  barbari- 
zation  both  within  and  without  the  imperial  frontiers 
the  best  elements  of  the  Greco-Roman  culture  main- 
tained a  long  but  losing  fight,  and  the  modern  history  of 
the  West  represents  a  new  movement  which  had  the 
advantage  of  starting  with  many  vital  elements  of  the 
old  culture  preserved  through  the  wreck.  The  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  our  time  are  that  civilization 
for  the  first  time  has  the  upper  hand,  that  the  physical 
conditions  of  life  have  come  and  are  rapidly  coming 
more  and  more  within  human  control,  and  that  at  least 
the  foundations  have  been  laid  of  a  social  order  which 
would  render  possible  a  permanent  and  unbroken  devel- 
opment. 

The  progress  of  mind  in  its  lower  stages  is  not  arrested 
by  external  enemies  alone.  On  the  contrary,  its  own 
limitations  engender  diseases  which  entail  arrest,  decay, 
and  possible  dissolution.  The  very  growth  of  control 
over  external  nature  is  the  root  of  social  inequality. 
If  not  its  first,  it  is  its  sustaining  cause.  The  individual, 
the  caste,  the  race  of  higher  powers  will  hold  the  weaker 
enslaved  to  their  immediate  profit,  to  the  gain  of  indus- 
trial civilization,  but  to  the  immeasurable  loss  of  much 


164     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

beside.  The  mechanical  developments  of  the  eighteenth 
and  nineteenth  centuries  afford  the  basis,  as  I  would  con- 
tend, for  a  wholly  new  type  of  civilization,  but  this 
possibility  is  not  to  close  our  eyes  to  the  lowering  of  the 
standard  of  life  and  the  mechanizing  of  great  masses  of 
human  beings  which  they  have  entailed.  We  may  go 
still  further,  and  maintain  with  Plato  that  in  the  civilized 
world  every  form  of  society  perishes  by  its  inherent  vices 
as  much  as  by  external  assault.  Thus,  the  states  of 
Plato's  own  time  decayed  through  internal  faction,  and 
the  narrowness  of  the  spirit  of  autonomy  which  forever 
nipped  the  shoots  of  Pan-Hellenic  sentiment.  The  Ro- 
man state,  enjoying  a  far  higher  level  of  political  capac- 
ity, could  not  reconcile  liberty  with  empire,  nor  even  the 
stability  of  automatic  rule  with  the  power  of  the  soldier 
and  the  vast  physical  extent  of  the  frontiers.  For  the 
modern  world  there  remain  problems  of  reconciliation 
no  less  grave,  and  the  question  which, must  be  answered 
before  our  view  of  the  comparative  security  of  modern 
civilization  can  be  finally  established  is  just  whether 
the  social  thought  of  our  day  is  sufficiently  advanced  to 
solve  them.  At  this  point  once  more  the  theory  of  social 
evolution  ends,  in  the  demand  for  a  social  philosophy. 

If  you  have  followed  me  so  far,  you  will  readily  appre- 
hend my  general  answer  to  the  criticisms  which  I  sug- 
gested. The  aim  of  comparative  sociology  is  to  meas- 
ure the  actual  achievement  of  social  progress,  and  its 
result  is  to  indicate  the  attainment  of  certain  funda- 
mental conditions  of  harmonious  development  by  the 
maturing  of  the  social  mind  on  many  different  sides  and 
through  numerous  assignable  phases.  This  result  (1) 
does  not  enable  us  to  infer  a  mechanically  inevitable 


EVOLUTION  AND  PROGRESS  165 

continuance  of  the  social  movement  in  any  particular 
department  on  the  lines  of  the  past  or  of  the  present, 
because,  if  its  version  of  the  facts  is  correct,  new  factors 
are  coming  into  existence  whereby  social  history  becomes 
less  and  less  a  matter  of  mechanical  necessity  and  more 
and  more  controlled  by  purposive  intelligence.  Nor 
(2)  does  the  history  of  social  progress  as  such  afford  a 
sufficient  basis  for  the  social  philosophy  which  it 
postulates,  for  such  a  philosophy  consists  not  in  the 
record  of  past  movements,  but  in  the  effort  to  form  a 
rational  and  comprehendve  purpose  to  guide  the  future. 
None  the  less  the  inductive  theory  of  evolution  lies  at 
the  back  of  any  sound  social  philosophy,  for  it  is  to  this 
theory  that  we  must  look  for  proof  that  in  philosophizing 
we  are  not  merely  beating  the  air.  It  is  this  theory 
which  goes  to  show  that  the  development  of  the  social 
mind  is  a  reality;  that  its  growth  is  the  condition  of 
progressive  harmony ;  that  it  is  where  its  control  of  the 
conditions  fails  that  progress  halts ;  that  the  sphere  of 
its  control  is  upon  the  whole  greater  in  our  own  day 
than  at  any  previous  time ;  and  that  it  has  in  fine  ad- 
vanced far  enough  to  show  that  the  possibility  of  a  har- 
monious development  of  human  life  is  no  dream  dis- 
solved by  the  cold  touch  of  physical  science,  but  a 
reality  to  which  the  entire  story  of  evolution,  physical, 
biological,  mental,  and  social  leads  up. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

Social  Philosophy  and  Modern  Problems 

We  have  said  that  the  history  of  social  evolution  ends 
on  every  side  not  in  a  solution,  but  in  a  problem,  or  if  we 
prefer  so  to  put  it,  that  the  solutions  so  far  attained  only 
give  rise  to  fresh  problems.  This  being  so,  the  case  for 
progress  rests  at  bottom  on  the  belief,  justified  as  we 
suggest  by  a  comprehensive  view  of  a  wide  range  of  fact, 
that  we  have  reached  a  point  at  which  it  is  becoming 
possible  to  solve  the  problems  of  social  life  by  the 
deliberate  application  of  rational  methods  of  control. 
But  this  statement  suggests  conclusions  which  will  not 
pass  unchallenged.  It  suggests,  for  example,  an  exten- 
sion of  collective  action  which  some  will  regard  as  inimi- 
cal to  the  liberty,  the  individual  enterprise,  the  personal 
initiative  which  they  have  been  accustomed  to  regard 
as  the  mainspring  of  whatever  progress  the  world  may 
have  seen.  And  going  back  to  our  account  of  the  state, 
they  may  bring  some  of  our  own  arguments  to  aid  their 
case.  For  our  account  tended  to  show  among  other 
things  that  what  differentiated  the  modern  state  from 
earlier  forms  of  society  was  the  increased  regard  for  per- 
sonal right,  for  equal  justice,  for  all  that  is  summed  up  in 
the  conception  of  Liberty.  Here,  then,  in  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  state  we  come  upon  one  of  the 
greatest  of  the  unsolved  problems  and  we  may  fairly  be 
asked  to  put  our  social  philosophy  to  the  test  by  in- 
quiring whether  it  has  any  help  to  give  in  the  solution, 

166 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     167 

Let  us  first  see  how  the  problem  has  shaped  itself  to 
modern  thought.  It  is  no  novel  difficulty.  Ever  since  I 
have  known  anything  of  political  controversy  in  my  own 
jcountry  the  questi'on  of  the  just  limits  of  the  action  of  the' 
Istate  on  the  one  side  and  the  liberty  of  the  individual, 
on  the  other  has  been  matter  of  lively  controversy. 
It  is  a  point  on  which  the  movement  of  democratic 
opinion  in  particular  has  been  irregular,  and  has  been 
and  still  is  a  cause  of  perplexity  to  many  persons  of 
strong  humanitarian  sympathies.  The  older  school  of 
English  Liberals  and  Radicals  were  in  general  for  re- 
stricting the  sphere  of  the  state.  This  is  true  not  only 
of  the  Manchester  School,  to  whom  national  liberty  was 
the  center  of  all  things  social  and  political,  but,  on  the 
whole,  of  the  Benthamites  also,  whose  utilitarian  creed 
was  capable  of  a  quite  opposed  interpretation.  Nor 
was  the  tendency  to  restriction  peculiar  to  the  Radicals. 
In  its  degree  it  affected  men  of  all  parties.  It  was  the 
temper  of  the  period  from  1832  to  1886.  In  our  own 
time  the  position  is  reversed.  It  is  the  democratic 
element  in  politics  that  urges  the  development  of  state 
activity.  If  we  hear  protests  on  behalf  of  the  liberty  of 
the  individual,  it  is  generally  from  the  lips  of  some  one 
who  is  resisting  change.  Nevertheless  this  modification 
of  view  is  not  peculiar  to  a  single  party.  There  is  a  gen- 
eral shifting  of  the  balance.  The  democratic  elements 
have  gone  furthest,  but  the  whole  of  society  has  gone  a 
long  way  with  them.  It  is  generally  recognized  that  the 
sphere  of  public  responsibility  has  been  enlarged  and  has 
to  be  still  further  enlarged.  The  reluctance  to  assign 
new  functions  to  the  state  is  a  diminishing  quantity. 

The  extension  of  the  sphere  of  common  responsibility 


168     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

may  be  seen  first  in  the  remarkable  growth  of  public 
control  over  industrial  contracts,  arising  in  the  first 
instance  out  of  actual  experience  of  the  working  of 
imrestrained  competition.  The  material  prosperity- 
brought  about  by  the  industrial  revolution  which  be- 
gan to  take  effect  towards  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  soon  seen  to  bring  a  host  of  new  problems 
in  its  train.  Of  these  the  empjoyment  of  young  chil- 
dren was  most  pressing,  and,  notwithstanding  the  pre- 
dominance of  the  laissez-faire  principle,  an  exception 
had  to  be  made  in  the  case  of  juvenile  labor  at  an  early 
date.  But  in  the  case  of  children  all  but  the  most 
rigid  adherents  of  laissez-faire  were  ready  to  make 
exceptions.  It  was  clear  that  children  of  six  or  seven 
could  not  be  regarded  as  self -determining  agents ;  they 
could  make  no  bargain  on  their  own  account ;  and  to 
regulate  the  conditions  of  their  work  was  not  to  inter- 
fere with  the  contract  made  by  the  worker,  but  at 
worst  with  the  contract  made  by  the  parent  or  the 
guardian  of  the  worker,  and  as,  in  the  case  of  child 
labor,  the  guardian  was  very  often  no  one  more  nearly 
connected  with  the  child  than  a  Poor  Law  official,  the 
case  for  natural  liberty  was  not  a  very  strong  one. 
The  question  of  women's  labor  was  more  difficult,  and 
there  have  been  those,  from  Mill  to  some  of  the  cham- 
pions of  feminine  equality  at  the  present  day,  who  have 
stoutly  maintained  that  no  restrictions  should  be  im- 
posed upon  women  that  were  not  equally  binding  upon 
men.  This,  however,  has  not  been  the  generally  ac- 
cepted view.  It  has  been  more  commonly  held  that 
women  workers  were  economically  in  too  weak  a  posi- 
tion to  protect  themselves,  and  that  in  safeguarding  them 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS      169 

the  state  was  not  to  be  regarded  as  interfering  with  the 
natural  Uberty  of  the  fully  responsible  individual,  but 
rather  as  exercising  a  duty  of  tutelage  over  a  class  of 
persons  unable  adequately  to  protect  their  own  interests. 
Be  this  as  it  may,  the  employment  of  women  and  children 
in  factories  gave  rise  in  my  own  country  to  a  series  of  acts 
of  continually  increasing  stringency  for  the  regulation  of 
the  conditions  of  their  employment.  As  long,  however, 
as  the  ideas  of  laissez-faire  prevailed,  such  regulations 
were  regarded  as  exceptional.  They  were  justified  only  by 
the  economic  dependence  of  the  person  for  whose  benefit 
they  were  instituted ;  they  dealt  only  with  certain  con- 
ditions of  labor  considered  to  be  necessary  for  health. 
They  did  not  profess  to  regulate  the  whole  of  the  bargain, 
for  they  never  touched  wages ;  and  though  indirectly 
they  did  restrict  the  employment  of  the  male  worker, 
they  did  not  do  so  professedly  or  of  deliberate  intention. 
In  our  own  time  we  have  seen  a  great  extension  of  the 
principle  in  these  two  respects.  The  hours  of  the  adult 
male  worker-have  been  brought  under  the  regulation  of 
a  government  department  in  the  case  of  the  railways, 
and,  after  a  prolonged  controversy,  the  hours  of  miners 
have  been  closely  Hmited  by  law.  The  Miners'  Act  has 
special  significance  in  this  respect,  as  it  was  the  point 
upon  which  the  battle  of  trade-union  versus  political 
action  was  fought  out,  both  among  the  trade-unionists 
themselves  and  in  the  wider  arena  of  pubhc  controversy. 
But  in  recent  years  the  British  government  has  even 
gone  further.  It  has  followed  the  example  of  the 
Australian  and  New  Zealand  legislation,  and  has  under- 
taken to  deal  not  only  with  the  regulation  of  hours  and 
sanitary  conditions,  but,  in  the  case  of  certain  selected 


170     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

sweated  industries,  with  the  rateofjwages  itself.  That 
is  to  say,  a  legally  recogDized  authority  undertakes  to 
control  the  entire  bargain  made  by  the  worker  with  his 
or  her  employer  in  the  industries  concerned.  Once  again 
the  special  ground  taken  on  behalf  of  the  trades  in  ques- 
tion is  the  economic  helplessness  of  the  worker.  But  once 
again  we  have  a  principle  laid  down  clearly  capable  of 
very  wide  extension.  Though  the  action  of  the  wages 
boards  is  confined  to  a  very  small  number  of  selected 
trades,  there  are  tendencies  at  work  which  make  indi- 
rectly for  a  very  much  wider  extension  of  public  super- 
vision. The  great  organized  industries  have  come  more 
and  more  to  trust  to  collective  bargains  between  em- 
ployers and  employed,  arrived  at  by  conciliation  boards 
consisting  of  equal  representatives  of  both  sides,  meeting 
as  a  rule  under  the  presidency  of  an  impartial  chairman ; 
and  where  these  boards  fail  there  is  a  growing  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  public  to  demand  the  intervention  of 
the  Board  of  Trade.  Though  neither  capital  nor  labor 
would  at  present  desire  or  agree  to  compulsory  arbitra- 
tion, it  becomes  year  by  year  more  difficult  for  either 
party  to  refuse  on  demand  to  submit  its  case  to  an  im- 
partial tribunal. 

In  such  ways  as  these  the  ground  is  being  prepared 
for  a  far  wider  extension  of  public  responsibility  in  the 
matter  of  industrial  regulation.  If  from  the  regulation 
of  industry  we  turn  to  the  provision  for  poverty,  we  see 
an  analogous  change  in  public  opinion.  The  Poor  Law 
Commission  of  1834  was  dominated  by  the  desire  to 
restrict  public  assistance  within  the  narrowest  possible 
limits.  Unwise  and  irregular  forms  of  pecuniary  aid  had 
done  much  to  pauperize  the  poorer  classes,  particularly 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     171 

in  the  rural  districts,  and  experience  in  this  instance  told 
heavily  on  the  side  of  theory  as  against  public  interven- 
tion. The  Poor  Law  Commissioners  clearly  conceived 
that  the  problem  of  the  pauper  was  in  essentials  a  prob- 
lem of  idleness,  and  that  to  cure  pauperism  the  prime 
necessity  was  to  stimulate  industry  and  thrift.  There 
seems  to  have  been  little  question  at  that  time  but  that  a 
man  who  would  work  could  find  work  and  work  sufficient 
to  support  him  and  a  normal  family  in  normal  circum- 
stances. Provision  for  the  poor  should  on  this  view  be 
required  only  in  cases  (5f  disablement,  childhood,  sick- 
ness, or  overwhelming  misfortune.  Such  cases  could  in 
large  measure  be  left  to  private  charity,  and  where  this 
failed  the  state  should  come  in,  it  was  thought,  only 
where  there  was  complete  destitution,  and  the  test  of 
real  destitution  was  willingness  to  submit  to  the  re- 
strictions of  the  workhouse  as  a  condition  of  the  receipt 
of  relief.  Now  the  actual  history  of  industry  since  1834 
has  shown  that  some  of  these  assumptions  can  no  longer 
be  maintained.  With  regard  to  the  fundamental  ques- 
tion of  employment,  for  example,  the  facts  have  clearly 
shown  that  the  case  is  far  more  complex.  Unemploy- 
ment is  due  to  very  various  causes;  the  character, 
ability,  and  physique  of  the  worker  together  undoubt- 
edly constitute  one  of  them,  but  as  undoubtedly  this 
is  not  the  only  one.  The  actual  volume  of  employ- 
ment is  subject  to  seasonal  and  to  longer  periodical 
fluctuations,  and  in  times  of  depression  the  statistical 
evidence  is  clear  that  large  numbers  of  respectable  and 
hard-working  men  are  thrown  out  of  work  through  no 
fault  of  their  own. 
More  accurate  information  on  these  and  on  many 


172     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

other  causes  and  incidents  of  poverty  are  no  doubt 
largely  responsible  for  the  change  of  opinion.  The 
sweeping  character  of  this  change  is  illustrated  by  the 
present  movement  for  the  break-up  of  the  Poor  Law. 
The  Commission,  which  issued  its  report  in  1909  was, 
unfortunately,  not  unanimous.  The  majority  adhered 
in  the  main  to  the  older  view,  though  with  a  liberal  and 
progressive  interpretation ;  but  an  important  minority, 
whose  work  has  met  with  a  very  wide  response  from 
public  opinion,  took  up  an  entirely  different  line.  Their 
object  is  to  eliminate  the  test  of  destitution  altogether  as 
a  condition  of  relief.  They  urge  that  to  watch  a  family 
sinking  by  degrees  into  the  depths  and  to  wait  until  it 
touches  bottom  before  a  hand  is  held  out  to  help  it  is 
neither  humane  nor  economical.  They  say  that  the 
process  is  most  easily  arrested  at  the  beginning,  and  in- 
stead of  public  relief  to  be  resorted  to  as  a  painful  and 
most  undesirable  form  of  cure  when  the  evil  is  done,  what 
is  required  is  rather  public  assistance  to  act  as  a  preven- 
tive. Instead  of  seeking  to  restrict  public  aid,  therefore, 
within  the  narrowest  possible  limits  by  imposing  a  more 
rigid  test  of  destitution,  they  would  rather  encourage 
the  cooperation  of  the  individual  with  the  public  au- 
thority. They  look  on  public  assistance  rather  as  a  good 
than  as  an  evil,  of  which  men  should  be  encouraged  to 
avail  themselves  rather  than  dissuaded  from  resorting  to 
it.  They  are  not  unaware  that  such  a  principle  might  be 
so  misapplied  as  to  weaken  the  necessary  stimulus  to 
personal  effort,  and  they  seek  to  overcome  this  diffi- 
culty by  suggesting  more  efficient  arrangements  for  the 
recovery  of  the  cost  of  public  assistance  from  those 
individuals  who  benefit  by  it  and  are  in  a  position  to  pay 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     173 

for  it.  Whether  this  machinery  is  or  is  not  adequate  is  a 
practical  question  of  great  difficulty  which  will  have  to 
be  very  seriously  discussed ;  but  for  the  moment  I  am 
concerned  merely  to  illustrate  the  evolution  of  opinion, 
and  I  could  hardly  take  anything  more  significant  than 
the  change  from  the  conception  of  relief  as  a  necessity 
to  be  kept  within  the  narrowest  possible  limits  by  impos- 
ing the  test  of  destitution,  to  the  conception  of  public 
assistance  as  a  normal  incident  of  life,  from  which  society 
and  the  individual  may  alike  be  the  gainers,  and  which 
rests  at  bottom  not  on  principles  of  regulated  charity,  but 
rather  on  those  of  a  reciprocal  right  and  duty.  Nor 
is  the  new  principle  merely  the  watchword  of  a 
party.  It  has  in  substance  gained  legislative  recog- 
nition. From  our  present  point  of  view  perhaps 
the  most  startling  departure  from  old  traditions  taken 
by  the  British  legislature  in  recent  times  is  to  be  found 
in  the  Old  Age  Pensions  Act  of  1908 ;  and  what  is  most 
remarkable  about  this  act,  when  considered  as  an  evi- 
dence of  the  movement  of  opinion,  is  that  it  was  in  sub- 
stance a  non-party  measure ;  both  sides  freely  claimed 
credit  for  the  initiation  of  the  idea  and  for  the  support 
given  to  the  concrete  proposals  of  the  Liberal  Govern- 
ment. Criticism  and  opposition  were  indeed  heard,  but 
they  proceeded  from  a  resolute  few  who  gathered  to- 
gether as  a  forlorn  hope  around  the  standard  of  older 
economic  convictions,  but  who,  so  far  as  their  effect  upon 
public  opinion  was  concerned,  were  voices  crying  in  the 
wilderness.  The  act  of  1908  completely  threw  over  the 
principle  of  destitution  as  the  basis  of  a  claim  to  public 
assistance.  It  awarded  a  pension  of  5s.  a  week  to  all 
men  and  women  of  seventy  and  upwards  in  .the  enjoy- 


174     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

mentof  an  income  of  less  than  £21  a  year  each/ provided 
that  they  were  British  subjects  and  that  they  fulfilled 
certain  elementary  conditions  of  industry  and  respect- 
ability. There  was,  indeed,  one  provision  reminiscent 
of  the  older  views :  persons  who  should  have  received 
poor  relief  subsequently  to  the  1st  of  January,  1908, 
were  to  be  disqualified  from  the  receipt  of  a  pension ; 
but  this  pauper  disqualification,  as  it  was  called,  at  once 
encountered  severe  criticism,  and  it  was  only  maintained 
in  the  original  act  on  the  plea  that  financial  considera- 
tions made  it  impossible  further  to  increase  the  number 
of  pensioners  at  the  outset,  and  by  the  incorporation  in 
the  act  of  words  providing  for  the  surcease  of  the  dis- 
qualification on  January  1,  1911.  The  disqualification 
has  accordingly  lapsed  with  time,  and  from  the  begin- 
ning of  this  year  the  pension  has  in  fact  been  available 
for  all  persons  of  respectable  standing  of  the  age  of 
seventy  within  the  income  limit,  unless  they  are  actually 
compelled  to  resort  to  a  Poor  Law  institution  by  failing 
to  find  friends  who  can  take  care  of  them  outside.  The 
fundamental  character  of  this  change  in  our  system  for 
the  relief  of  the  aged  has  hardly  yet  received  all  the  em- 
phasis which  it  deserves.  The  tendency  of  people  who  in- 
troduce a  great  change  in  a  conservative  country  like 
England  is  to  minimize  the  departure  from  precedent ; 
but  in  reality  the  breach  with  the  past  is  great,  and  prob- 
ably irreparable.  The  test  of  destitution  disappears ; 
nor  in  reality  is  any  other  substantial  test,  as  of  charac- 
ter, industry,  or  thrift,  substituted  for  it.  All  proposals 
of  such  a  tendency  encountered  strong  opposition,  and 

*  Above  this  income  the  pension  diminishes  on  a  sliding  scale  till 
at  the  limit  of  £31.  10s.  it  is  extinguished. 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN   PROBLEMS     175 

were  in  time  whittled  away  to  a  bare  minimum.  The 
principle  implied  by  the  new  law  is  at  bottom  no  other 
than  this :  that  the  bulk  of  the  people  are  so  circum- 
stanced that  they  cannot  be  expected  to  make  adequate 
provision  for  their  old  age  unaided,  and  that  it  is  accord- 
ingly the  duty,  as  it  is  within  the  power,  of  the  commu- 
nity to  provide  the  bare  minimum  necessary  to  an  inde- 
pendent life.  It  is  very  instructive  to  consider  the  argu- 
ments used  against  and  in  favor  of  this  contention.  As 
against  the  pension  system,  it  is  urged,  in  accordance 
with  the  older  view,  that  it  is  the  business  of  the  individ- 
ual to  provide  for  himself,  and  that,  where  the  parent 
has  failed  to  do  so,  it  becomes  the  duty  of  the  child  to 
support  him  or  her.  To  this  it  is  replied,  as  already 
hinted,  that  the  burden  upon  the  individual  was  too 
great  to  be  borne ;  that  the  children  would,  by  the  time 
their  parents  attained  the  age  of  seventy,  be  themselves 
as  a  rule  responsible  for  a  family  or  for  other  dependents ; 
that  in  practice  it  was  found  impossible  to  obtain  from 
them  the  support  that  was  desired ;  that  they  would  in 
reality  do  more  for  their  parents  if  the  pension  were  there 
as  a  basis  to  go  upon ;  that  the  old  folks,  instead  of  be- 
ing left  to  drift  into  the  workhouse,  would  be  honored 
and  welcome  guests  by  the  fireside,  and  that  for  the  in- 
dividual the  motives  to  thrift  would  not  be  weakened 
nor  the  springs  of  industrial  activity  broken  by  the  pro- 
vision of  a  bare  minimum,  to  which  every  one  would  find  it 
highly  desirable  to  add  what  he  could  by  his  own  efforts. 
It  was  contended  that  men  did  not  save  for  old  age  be- 
cause they  could  not  hope  to  lay  by  enough  to  secure  for 
them  independence,  nor  even  means  of  subsistence  as 
comfortable  as  was  provided  in  the  workhouse;  but 


176     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

that,  if  they  could  count  on  so  small  a  sum  as  5s.  a 
week,  they  would  try  to  add  to  it  another  Is.  or  2s.  or 
half-a-crown.  It  was  urged,  therefore,  that,  so  far  from 
paralyzing,  it  would  tend  to  stimulate  thrift,  so  far  from 
superseding,  it  would  tend  to  rekindle  the  dying  embers 
of  filial  responsibility.  When  it  was  urged  that  men 
should  at  least  contribute  to  the  provision  for  their  old 
age,  it  was  replied  that  the  scanty  earnings  of  a  work- 
man were  better  devoted  to  the  objects  of  immediate 
necessity  for  the  health  and  efficiency  of  his  family  and 
himself ;  and  that,  if  the  contributions  were  to  be  any- 
thing more  than  a  sham,  the  requirement  would,  in  fact, 
wreck  the  value  of  a  universal  scheme  which  would  relieve 
the  Poor  Law  of  its  greatest  burden. 

As  between  these  two  lines  of  argument,  the  facts  must 
decide ;  experience  must  show  whether  in  point  of  fact 
the  springs  of  industry  are  weakened,  whether  thrift 
diminishes,  whether  the  family  tie  is  loosened,  whether 
self-respect  is  undermined.  Hitherto  none  of  these  evils 
have  been  apparent,  and  though,  in  the  length  of  time 
that  has  elapsed,  there  has  not  been  sufficient  evidence 
for  the  formation  of  any  decided  opinion,  there  can 
be  no  doubt  that  public  opinion  as  a  whole  has  ac- 
quiesced in  the  Old  Age  Pensions  Act  of  1908. 
^-  One  of  the  arguments  in  favor  of  old  age  pensions  is 
based  on  the  consideration  that  they  give  help  at  a  time 
when  the  recipient  has  become  helpless ;  but  old  age  is, 
of  course,  not  the  only  period  of  helplessness.  There  are 
for  the  poor,  and  indeed  for  all  of  us,  properly  considered, 
the  years  of  childhood,  when  we  are  wholly  dependent 
on  others ;  there  are  the  risks  of  sickness  and  mutilation 
by  accident;   there  is  the  period  of  incipient  old  age, 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     177 

when  sickness  passes  into  permanent  invalidity;  and 
finally,  for  the  working  people,  there  is  the  recurrent  risk 
of  unemployment.  Now  for  all  these  risks  pubUc  rem- 
edies have  either  been  provided  or  are  being  actively 
canvassed  and  urged  upon  government  by  important 
sections  of  public  opinion.  By  the  act  of  1906  the  ap- 
plication of  the  money  of  ratepayers  to  the  feeding  of 
necessitous  children  in  schools  was  permitted,  though  the 
adoption  of  the  act  was  left  to  the  decision  of  the  local 
authority.  With  regard  to  sickness  and  invalidity, 
a  scheme  of  insurance  is  now  before  Parliament  follow- 
ing upon  the  lines  of  the  German  model  and  involving 
at  least  a  substantial  provision  on  the  part  of  the  state. 
With  regard  to  unemployment,  the  question  is  one  of 
infinite  complexity,  and  no  solution  can  as  yet  be  re- 
garded as  anything  but  experimental.  But  the  respon- 
sibility of  the  state  is  more  and  more  clearly  recognized. 
As  soon  as  the  figures  of  unemployment  begin  to  mount 
up,  whether  from  seasonal  causes  or  owing  to  periodical 
depression,  there  is  at  once  a  demand  for  the  public 
provision  of  work,  and,  experience  having  shown  the 
exceedingly  unsatisfactory  character  of  regular  relief 
works,  this  has  tended  of  late  years  to  take  the  form 
of  the  pushing  forward  of  the  ordinary  municipal  works 
that  are  actually  required  on  public  grounds  in  the 
locality,  and  the  endeavor  so  to  arrange  them  as  to 
make  the  period  of  greatest  municipal  activity  coincide 
with  the  times  of  industrial  depression.  One  of  the 
recommendations  of  the  minority  of  the  Poor  Law 
Commissioners  is  that  this  method  should  be  extended 
so  as  to  form  a  regular  scheme.  As  the  waves  of  ex- 
pansion and  depression  extend  roughly  over  a  period  of 


178     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

about  ten  years  it  is  proposed,  so  far  as  possible,  that 
public  works  should  be  laid  out  in  advance  upon  a  ten- 
years'  scheme  with  a  view  to  dovetailing  the  expansion 
of  municipal  and  governmental  employment  into  the 
depressions  of  ordinary  industry.  It  is  suggested  that  a 
figure  of  about  £4,000,000  a  year  represents  the  differ- 
ence between  the  wages  paid  in  good  and  those  paid  in 
bad  years,  and  that  an  expenditure  of  about  that  amount 
will  go  far  towards  equalizing  the  fluctuation  of  the  labor 
market  and  saving  the  workman  from  the  anxieties  and 
disasters  attendant  upon  failure  to  obtain  employment. 
This  proposal  in  itself  constitutes  a  considerable  advance 
in  the  direction  of  the  public  organization  and  control 
of  the  labor  market,  but  it  does  not  stand  alone.  It  is 
recognized  that  no  such  effort  would  cover  all  cases,  and 
it  is  proposed  in  addition  that  there  should  be  an  assisted 
scheme  of  insurance  against  unemployment,  whether 
working  upon  the  model  which  Continental  experience 
has  made  familiar,  of  subventions  to  trade-unions  or 
other  friendly  societies  which  already  give  benefit  to 
their  unemployed  members,  or  by  a  new  state  system, 
which  would  be  universal  and  compulsory.^ 

I  need  not  now  discuss  the  rival  merits  of  these  two 
proposals ;  I  only  note  both  alike  involve  the  princi- 
ple of  largely  increased  pubHc  subvention  to  the  needs 
of  poverty,  —  involve,  in  other  words,  the  acceptance  by 
the  state  of  responsibility  for  a  large  measure  of  the 
risks  which  the  workman  has  hitherto  borne  unaided. 
Beyond  this  we  have  the  proposal,  also  urged  by  the 
Minority   Commissioners,  that   the  labor   exchanges, 

*  Both  schemes  are  in  fact  incorporated  in  the  Bill  now  before 
Parliament. 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     179 

themselves  constituting  a  new  state  agency  for  the  pro- 
vision of  employment,  should  be  constituted  the  center 
of  a  machine  by  which  no  adult  healthy  working  man 
or  woman  would  be  left  without  means  of  support  in 
periods  of  industrial  crises.  The  machinery  of  the  labor 
exchange,  it  is  suggested,  will  when  sufficiently  per- 
fected suffice  to  determine  whether  there  is  or  whether 
there  is  not  a  real  shortage  of  labor.  It  will  become 
possible  to  say  of  any  individual  whether  he  is  out  of 
work  through  his  own  fault  or  not,  whether  he  has  de- 
clined reasonable  offers,  whether  he  has  lost  employment 
through  some  defect  of  his  own,  or  whether  he  is  there 
in  attendance  at  the  exchange  ready  and  able  to  give 
efficient  service  but  unable  to  find  the  man  he  is  to 
serve.  When  thus  the  sheep  are  parted  from  the  goats, 
it  is  said,  it  will  be  possible  to  deal  with  both  classes. 
The  determined  idler  must  not  be  allowed  to  prey  upon 
society,  he  must  not  go  cadging  about  for  odds  and  ends 
of  useless  jobs  or  for  bits  of  charity;  he  must  not  be 
allowed  to  keep  his  wife  and  children  in  rags,  ill-housed 
and  underfed.  The  children  must  be  cared  for;  the 
mother,  if  she  is  doing  her  duty  by  them,  is  doing  one 
woman's  work  and  may  fairly  claim  public  maintenance 
with  no  possible  question  of  a  return.  As  to  the  man, 
he  is  a  fit  subject  for  discipline  and  restraint.  For 
him  a  labor  colony  must  be  provided,  where  he  must 
learn  to  work  and  gain  his  discharge  as  soon  as  he 
can  prove  himself  efficient  enough  in  mind  and  body 
to  stand  the  stress  of  industrial  competition.  On  the 
other  hand,  for  the  willing  worker  who  can  find  no 
means  of  maintenance,  there  must  in  justice  be  a 
different  order  of  treatment.     He  will  have  to  be  main- 


180     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

tained,  occupation  will  have  to  be  found  for  him. 
It  is  suggested  that  if  no  directly  productive  occupation 
can  be  found,  a  system  of  industrial  training  would 
be  possible,  and  in  this  way,  among  other  objects,  the 
means  would  be  provided  of  bridging  over  the  trade 
transitions,  which  are  another  cause  of  economic 
distress.  Up  to  middle  life,  at  any  rate,  men  who 
are  being  ousted  by  a  new  process  might  either  learn 
that  process  or  acquire  some  skill  in  an  alternative 
occupation.  Now,  I  cannot  do  justice  to  these  pro- 
posals on  their  practical  side  within  the  limits  of  this 
bare  sketch,  and  I  must  ask  you  not  to  judge  of  their 
practicality  from  the  brief  references  which  I  have  made. 
I  do  not  suggest  that  they  are  all  of  equal  value,  or  that 
they  need  be  adopted  or  rejected  wholesale.  I  mention 
them  to  illustrate  the  trend  of  opinion,  to  show  you 
the  forces  which  are  at  work  in  England,  to  enable  you 
to  understand  the  direction  in  which  they  are  taking  us, 
and  to  measure  the  rapidity  with  which  the  sphere 
of  collective  responsiblity  for  the  welfare  of  the  indi- 
vidual is  being  extended  from  year  to  year. 

The  period  under  review  has  witnessed  an  equally 
remarkable  extension  of  the  functions  of  the  state 
as  the  organizer  of  certain  great  departments  of  life. 
The  most  conspicuous  of  these  is  public  education. 
Within  the  lifetime  of  men  who  still  survive  the  function 
of  the  state  in  education  was  conceived  as  being  ade- 
quately discharged  by  the  grant  of  a  few  thousands  a 
year  in  support  of  voluntary  societies  for  the  better 
education  of  the  poor.  Within  my  own  lifetime  the 
state  has  made  itself  responsible  for  the  elementary 
education  of  three  fourths  of  the  community,  and  from 


V 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS     181 

elementary  education  it  has  advanced  to  secondary- 
education  and  at  least  to  an  active  interest  in  and  a 
modest  financial  support  of  education  of  a  University 
type.  Here  again  the  older  liberty  of  the  family  is 
impaired  by  the  principle  of  compulsion,  while  what 
earlier  thinkers  would  have  regarded  as  a  necessary 
incident  of  parental  responsibility  is  taken  on  to  the 
shoulders  of  the  public  by  the  remission  of  fees.  No 
more  striking  illustration  of  the  extension  of  state  func- 
tions could  be  given  ttian  a  comparison  of  the  budget 
of  an  Education  Minister  of  the  present  day  with  that 
of  1850  or  1860. 

But  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  the  extension  of  state 
control  is  indiscriminate,  nor  is  it  to  be  inferred  that 
the  essentials  of  personal  liberty  have  undergone  such 
restrictions  as  might  appear  from  a  bare  recital  of 
the  facts  to  which  I  have  referred.  If  we  look  to  other 
sides  of  the  national  life  we  see  no  such  movement. 
There  is  in  England  an  Established  Church  and,  though 
it  would  be  true  to  say  that  the  movement  for  Dises- 
tablishment in  England  has  made  comparatively  little 
headway  during  the  last  generation,  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  find  any  counter  movement  that  is  seriously 
to  be  reckoned  with.  On  the  contrary,  the  period 
which  I  have  had  under  review  has  witnessed  the 
Disestablishment  of  the  Irish  Church  and  a  lively 
and  determined  agitation  for  the  Disestablishment  of 
the  English  Church  in  Wales ;  while  if  we  look  again  to 
the  case  of  education,  we  see  that  whereas  in  all  secular 
matters  the  increased  authority  of  the  state  is  welcomed 
on  all  sides,  the  smallest  attempt  to  impose  anything 
that  can  be  regarded  as  a  state  religion  arouses  the 


182     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

quickest  suspicions  and  is  combated  with  the  fiercest 
resentment.  The  contrast  may  suggest  that  the  true 
interpretation  of  the  modern  movement  is  not  to  be 
reached  by  setting  up  an  abstract  opposition  between 
state  interference  on  the  one  hand  and  the  hberty  of 
the  individual  on  the  other ;  the  question  at  stake  is  as" 
to  the  kind  of  Uberty  which  shall  be  left  to  the  individ- 
ual and  the  kind  of  responsibility  that  falls  to  the  com- 
munity. On  this  question  the  thinkers  of  our  timeT' 
and  particularly  the  great  democratic  thinkers,  take  a 
view  very  different  from  that  which  prevailed  in  the 
days  of  Cobden  and  Bright.  It  does  not  follow  that, 
they  value  liberty  less,  though  it  may  perhaps  be  true 
that  they  trust  to  government  more.  We  may  carry! 
the  discussion  further  by  looking  a  little  into  the  causes 
of  the  change  of  attitude  which  I  have  endeavored 
briefly  to  describe. 

The  intervention  of  the  state  in  the  sphere  of  eco- 
nomics may  be  ascribed  in  the  first  place  very  largely  to 
the  sheer  teaching  of  experience.  Palpable  evils  resulted 
from  the  regime  of  free  contract,  and  humane  men  took 
the  only  apparent  means  at  hand  for  combating  them. 
This  cause  by  itself,  however,  though  it  might  suffice 
to  explain  the  Factory  and  Mines  Acts,  would  not  cover 
the  whole  of  the  field.-' "^  Looking  a  little  deeper  we  see 
an  intelligible  reason  for  a  far-reaching  change  of 
attitude  on  the  part  of  democratic  thinkers  toward 
the  state  in  the  series  of  political  changes  which  have 
converted  the  government  from  an  oligarchic  consti- 
tution to  one  in  which  the  will  of  the  majority  can, 
at  least  when  it  is  sufficiently  resolute  and  united, 
obtain  its  way.    The  government  which  the  men  of 


SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY  AND  MODERN  PROBLEMS      183 

Bentham's  day  criticized  was  something  too  nearly  re- 
sembling a  close  and  corrupt  corporation;  it  was  not 
distinguished  for  competence,  it  was  not  remarkable 
for  an  enlightened  and  disinterested  view  of  public 
questions.  The  prejudice  had  sunk  deep  in  the  minds  of 
reflecting  men  that  the  government  conducted  no  busi- 
ness efficiently,  and  was  seldom  to  be  trusted  to  attempt 
such  conduct  with  a  single  eye  to  the  common  weal. 
The  reform  of  the  Civil  Service,  which  has  given  us 
probity  and  efficiency  of  administration,  and  the 
extension  of  the  suffrage,  which  has  given  to  the  mass 
of  the  male  population  the  last  word  on  public  issues, 
has  necessarily  altered  the  position.  The  modern 
writer,  if  he  sjmipathizes  with  democratic  aims,  looks 
at  government  as  a  machine  which  may  be  used  to 
embody  his  views  and  give  them  legal  effect.  He  has 
overcome  his  distrust,  he  has  found  that  efficiency  is 
possible,  and  he  has  come  to  assume  honesty  and  in- 
tegrity almost  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Political  changes,  then,  which  have  given  us  constitu- 
tional democracy,  have  paved  the  way  for  what,  if 
the  term  were  not  limited  to  a  rather  narrow  theory, 
we  might  call  a  social  democracy,  what  we  may  at 
any  rate  call  a  democracy  seeking,  by  the   organized 

expression  of  the  collective  will,  to  remodel  society  in  ac- 

cordance  with  humanitarian  sentiment.  Here  we  touch 
a  third  and  still  deeper  cause  which  must  be  brought 
into  the  account.  The  period  which  we  have  reviewed 
has  witnessed  a  progressive  deepening  of  humanitarian 
feeling  and  of  the  sense  of  collective  responsibility. 
The  public  mind  will  no  longer  acquiesce  in  the  sweater's 
den  any  more  than  it  would  acquiesce  in  this  country 


i4 

:-  f 


^ 


184     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

sixty  years  ago  in  negro  slavery.  Here  we  touch  a 
feeling  which  is  not  the  peculiar  privilege  of  any  party, 
but  which  is,  in  its  degree,  common  to  all  classes,  which 
inspires  voluntary  effort  no  less  than  political  agitation, 
and  which  underlies  not  merely  the  Liberal  and  Radical 
legislation  of  the  last  five  years,  but  also  in  its  degree 
the  Tariff  Reform  movement,  which  is  the  leading  pro- 
posal of  the  Conservative  or  Unionist  party.     On  all 

^sides  men  are  agreed  that  problems  of  poverty,  prob- 
lems of  education,  problems  of  physical,  mental,  and 
moral  efficiency,  are  matters  not  merely  of  individual 
and  private  but  equally  of  public  and  governmental 
concern.  They  do  not  deny  the  duty  or  depreciate  the 
responsibility  of  the  individual  for  himself  or  of  the 
parent  for  his  family,  but  they  superinlpose  upon  these 
a  duty  of  the  citizen  to  the  state  and  a  responsibility 
of  the  state  for  the  individual. 

f^'    Upon  the  whole,  then,  we  find  that  if  the  change  of 

i  attitude  has  been  sufficiently  sweeping  it  is  not  alto- 
gether indiscriminate.     There  is  a  great  extension  of 

\  collective  activity,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  be  attended 
by  a  vital  loss  in  the  sense  of  personal  freedom.  It 
remains,  however,  to  inquire  further  whether  the  two 
things  are  at  bottom  compatible,  or  whether  by 
advancing  farther  on  the  one  line  we  must  in  the  end 
retreat  upon  the  other.  This  is  the  question  pro- 
pounded by  the  actual  movement  of  opinion  to  our 
social  philosophy. 


CHAPTER  IX 

The  Individual  and  the  State 

Our  task  to-day  is  to  examine  the  movement  of  opin- 
ion which  has  been  outUned,  in  the  Hght  of  social  theory. 
I  We  held  that  social  progress  consists  in  a  harmonious 
;  development,  and  we  further  defined  this  conception 
I  as  including  a  harmony  in  the  development  of  the 
I  personal  life  of  the  members  of  society,  and  in  the  work-  I/' 
jing  out  and  fulfilment  of  the  various  and  at  first  sight 
divergent  elements  of  value  which  constitute  the  well- 
-being of  the  social  order.     In  the  movement  of  opinion 
we  have  seen  a  certain  conflict  of  ideals  and  our  question 
is  whether,  if  we  probe  deeper,  a  basis  of  reconstruction 
can  be  found.     To  find  an  answer  let  us  take  up  the 
question  afresh.     Let  us  start  with  the  conception  of 
the  social  order  which  the  principle  of  harmonious 
development  would  suggest.     Let  us  consider  to  what 
view  of  the  functions  of   the  state  and  the  rights  of 
the  individual  it  would  lead  and  let  us,  in  order  to  ob- 
serve the  limitations  of  time,  deal  with  the  question 
with  special  reference  to  the  problem  of  liberty. 

To  begin  with,  the  general  theory  of  society  indicated 
by  the  ideal  of  harmonious  development  is  clearly 
one  of  cooperation.  We  may  say,  with  Aristotle,  that 
society  is  an  association  of  human  beings  with  a  view 
to  the  good  life.  The  social  life  is  essentially  a  co-  ty 
operation  in  the  working  out  of  common  objects, 
and  the  best  organized  society  will  be  that  in  which 

185 


186     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

the  cooperation  is  most  perfect  and  complete;  but 
in  saying  this,  two  distinctions  have  to  be  kept  in  view. 
In  the  first  place  cooperation  has  its  negative  as  well 
as  its  positive  side.  Mutual  aid  is  essential  to  social 
life ;  mutual  forbearance  is  equally  necessary ;  indeed, 
as  a  condition  of  living  together,  at  least  of  living  a 
harmonious  life  together,  it  is  even  the  more  funda- 
mental of  the  two,  and  also  perhaps  the  more  difficult 
to  secure.  In  thinking,  then,  of  social  life  as  a  forni 
of  cooperation  we  must  lay  stress  not  only  upon  the 
activities  which  it  cultivates  in  common,  but  on  the 
idiosyncrasies  which  it  tolerates,  the  privacy  which 
it  allows,  the  divergent  developments  of  personality 
which  it  fosters. 

V  Secondly,  in  speaking  of  the  ideal  of  society,  we  must 
remember  that  social  life  and  the  life  of  the  state  are 
not  one  and  the  same  thing.  From  the  principle  that 
social  life  is  a  mode  of  cooperation  we  cannot  infer 
offhand  that  the  function  of  the  state  is  to  foster 
cooperation  of  the  same  kind  and  in  the  same  degree. 
To  determine  what  functions  the  state  itself  has  to 
perform  within  the  cooperative  social  life,  we  have  to 
ask  ourselves,  first,  what  are  the  special  characteristics 
of  the  state  as  a  form  of  society,  and  how  these  spe- 
cial characteristics  affect  its  function.  Two  character- 
istics which  affect  all  state  action  occur  to  us  at  once 
as  bearing  upon  the  question  of  its  legitimate  sphere. 
These  are,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  life  of  the  state  is  \ 
crystallized  into  the  form  of  definite  institutions,  that 
its  ordinances  have  to  be  incorporated  in  lai^s  and, 
lilies  of  universal  application,  that  it  must  deal  with! 
men   in   masses   and   with    problems   in    accordance* 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  187 

iwith  what  is  general  and  not  with  what  is  particular. 
Hence  it  is  with  difficulty  adapted  to  the  individuality 
of  life ;  it  is  a  clumsy  instrument,  as  it  were,  for  handling 
human  variation.  It  is  inadequate,  to  adapt  Bacon's 
phrase,  to  the  subtlety  of  human  nature.  Its  sphere 
is  the  normal,  the  prosaic,  the  commonplace ;  its  busi- 
ness is  to  solidify  the  substructure  of  society  rather 
than  to  pursue  it^  adornment.  It  can  handle  the 
matters  upon  which  ordinary  people  usually  agree  bet- 
ter than  those  upon  which  there  is  variety  of  opinion. 

In  the  second  place,  the  state  is  a  compulsory  form 
of  association.  Its  laws  have  force  behind  them,  and 
not  only  so,  but  the  state  does  not  leave  it  open  to 
the  inhabitants  of  its  territory  to  decide  whether  they 
will  remain  members  of  the  association  or  not.  In  a 
voluntary  association  there  are  rules  compulsory  upon 
all  those  who  remain  members,  but  the  ultimate  liberty 
is  reserved  to  individuals  to  part  from  the  association 
if  they  please.  In  the  case  of  the  state,  this  ultimate 
liberty  can  only  be  exercised  by  quitting  the  state 
territory  altogether,  and  even  that  privilege  has  been  at 
various  times  denied  to  the  subjects  of  the  community, 
and  is  to-day  not  unhampered  with  difficulties  for  the 
poor.  Now  it  is  true  that  there  are  important  functions 
which  the  state  can  perform  without  the  direct  use 
of  compulsion.  When  government  conducts  a  business 
enterprise  it  does  not  necessarily  compel  any  one  to 
avail  himself  of  its  services,  nor  does  it  necessarily 
suppress  competition.  On  this  side  the  question  as 
between  the  state  and  the  individual  is  not  one  of  the 
limits  of  liberty,  but  of  responsibility.^    But  ordinarily 

iSee  page  201. 


188     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

the  intervention  of  the  state  action  does  involve  some 
sort  of  compulsion  upon  the  individual  and  in  what 
follows  we  will  confine  our  attention  to  cases  of  this 
kind.  It  is  not  difficult  to  see  that  functions  may  be 
useful  and  salutary  when  freely  performed  which  would 
be  useless  and  even  injurious  when  imposed  on  reluctant 
people.  In  a  sense  this  may  be  said  to  be  true  of  aff 
moral  and  spiritual  functions  in  so  far  as  they  are  moral 
and  spiritual,  because  when  performed  under  compulsion 
they  lose  their  moral  and  spiritual  value.  It  is  not  to 
be  inferred  from  this  that  the  state  has  no  moral  or 
spiritual  functions.  Indeed,  its  action  in  certain  ca- 
pacities may  be  one  way,  and  possibly  the  best  way, 
of  expressing  the  moral  and  spiritual  interests  of  its 
members.  It  does  suggest  that  its  action  as  a  spiritual 
body  can  only  have  value  in  as  far  as  it  is  expressing  the 
will  of  its  members,  and  not  imposing  a  law  upon  them 
which  they  do  not  freely  and  voluntarily  accept. 
\,  It  follows  further  that  the  legitimate  functions  of 
*^he  state  must  depend  upon  the  whole  circumstances 
of  the  society  which  is  under  consideration.  The  kind 
of  compulsion  that  is  necessary,  the  degree  of  success 
with  which  compulsion  can  be  applied,  and  the  reflex 
consequences  of  its  employment  upon  the  general 
life  of  society  will  depend  essentially  upon  the  com- 
position of  the  community  and  the  relation  of  the 
government  to  its  subjects.  For  example,  in  a  very 
homogeneous  society,  where  all  the  people  are  of  one 
race,  one  allegiance,  and  one  religion,  there  will  be  a 
general  adherence  to  the  same  customs,  a  general  sym- 
pathy with  the  same  ideals  of  life,  and  there  will  be  little 
difficulty  in  maintaining  laws  which  could  only  be  im- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  189 

posed  upon  an  alien  race  by  means  of  extreme  severity. 

In  such  a  society,  then,  the  sphere  of  the  state  can  quite 

usefully  be  extended  to  functions  which,  in  a  complex 

empire  governing  men  of  different  nationalities  and  rival 

religions,  will  produce  confusion  and  the  breaking-up 

of  laws.     One  cannot,  then,  lay  down  general  rules  as 

pto  the  functions  of  the  state  which  will  apply  to  all  times 

»  and  places.     Our  only  general  rule  will  be  that,  seeing 

j   that  the  state  is  a  form  of  association  and  is  limited  by 

the  fact  that  its  functions  have  to  be  crystallized  in 

1  definite  institutions,  expressed  in  universal  laws  and  in 

j  large  measure  carried  out  by  the  use  of  compulsion, 

I  their  sphere  must  be  determined  by  considering  how 

j  far  the  objects  of  social  cooperation  can  be  furthered  by 

methods  of  this  kind,  or  how  far,  on  the  other  hand, 

the  nature  of  the  methods  necessary  will  itself  conflict 

l^ith  the  ends  desired. 

In  this  discussion  we  have  said  nothing  as  yet  of  the 
rights  of  the  individual  as  such,  or  of  the  ideal  of  liberty 
as  itself  a  fundamental  barrier  to  certain  kinds  of  state 
action.  In  fact,  this  antithesis  between  the  rights  of  the 
individual  and  the  welfare  of  the  state,  between  liberty  as 
such  and  restraint  as  such,  appears  to  be  a  false  antithesis. 
To  begin  with,  if  liberty  is  a  social  conception,  there 
can  be  no  liberty  without  social  restraint.  For  any  one 
person,  indeed,  there  might  be  a  maximum  of  liberty 
if  all  social  restraints  were  removed.  Where  physical 
strength  alone  prevails  the  strongest  man  has  unlimited 
liberty  to  do  what  he  likes  with  the  weaker ;  but  clearly, 
the  greater  the  freedom  of  the  strong  man  the  less  the 
freedom  of  the  weaker.  What  we  mean  by  liberty  as 
la  social  conception  is  a  right  to  be  shared  by  all  members 


190     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

of  society,  and  very  little  consideration  suffices  to  show 
that,  in  the  absence  of  restraints  enforced  on  and  ac- 
cepted by  all  members  of  a  society,  the  liberty  of  some 
must  involve  the  oppression  of  others.  Just  as  the 
liberty  of  the  strong  man  to  assail  the  weak  destroys 
the  liberty  of  the  weak  man  to  call  his  body  his  own, 
so  —  to  take  an  instance  from  our  own  contemporary 
experience  —  the  liberty  of  the  motor-car  to  use  the 
roads  may,  and  often  does,  go  so  far  as  to  impair  the  lib- 
erty of  any  other  class  of  vehicle  or  the  liberty  of  pedes- 
trians to  use  the  same  road  for  their  purposes.  Excess 
of  liberty  contradicts  itself.  In  short,  there  is  no  such 
thing;  there  is  only  liberty  for  one  and  restraint 
for  another.  If  liberty  then  be  regarded  as  a  social 
ideal,  the  problem  of  establishing  liberty  must  be  a 
problem  of  organizing  restraints ;  and  thuB-iihe  coircep- 
tion  of  a  liberty  which  is  to  set  an  entire  people  free 
from  its  government  appears  to  be  a  self-contradictory 
ideal.  Like  other  contradictory  ideals,  it  has  in  fact  an 
historical  explanation.  A  community  as  a  whole 
may  cherish  the  ideal  of  freedom,  and  by  freedom  may 
mean  escape  from  the  whole  system  of  government 
under  which  it  lives,  when  that  system  of  government 
is  imposed  by  an  alien  power.  Thus  a  subject  national- 
ity or  a  subject  class  may  claim  freedom  in  a  quite  gen- 
eral sense,  but  it  is  freedom,  if  properly  understood,  not 
from  government  altogether  but  from  alien  government, 
not  from  law  as  such,  but  from  the  particular  laws 
alien  to  the  good  of  the  subject  people,  which  are  im- 
posed upon  them  from  without.  In  a  self-governing 
people,  unless  the  machinery  of  democracy  is  very 
sadly  out  of  gear,  so  complete  a  want  of  touch  between 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  191 

governing  and  governed  can  hardly  be  apprehended. 
Law  and  government  in  such  a  case  must  in  the  main 
express  the  character,  on  the  whole  forward  the  collect- 
ive purpose  of  at  least  the  majority  of  the  individuals 
constituting  the  community.  And  here  arises  an 
important  corollary  to  what  has  been  said  above  of 
the  ethical  basis  of  state  functions.  So  far  as  self- 
government  is  genuinely  realized,  state  action  expresses 
the  combined  will  of  individuals.  The  desires  of  the 
individual  citizen  may  effectuate  themselves  most 
fully  through  state  machinery,  and  in  so  far  as  the  law 
and  the  administration  are  carrying  out  the  moral 
will  of  the  majority,  so  far  their  action  has  just  as  much 
moral  value  as  though  it  were  performed  by  the  in- 
dividuals themselves  through  the  agency  of  a  voluntary 
association.  Hence  when  we  trace  the  growing  confi- 
dence in  state  action  to  the  advance  of  democratic 
institutions  we  touch  a  deeper  principle  than  that  of 
the  mere  political  control  of  the  legislative  and  adminis- 
trative machine.  As  long  as  law  could  be  fairly  re- 
garded as  a  rule  imposed  by  a  superior  there  was  a 
serious  meaning  in  the  antithesis  between  that 
which  the  law  did  for  people  and  that  which  people 
did  for  themselves.  There  was  point  in  the  demand 
for  self  help  and  the  voluntary  organization  of  mutual 
aid  as  something  intrinsically  superior  to  the  parental 
interference  of  a  superior  authority.  There  was  a 
ground  for  saying  that  the  former  method  fostered  a 
manly  independence  and  a  ''living^'  sense  of  social 
responsibility,  while  the  latter  was  a  species  of  charity 
which  might  sap  these  qualities.  But  when  the  reform 
of  the  law  depends  on  the  deliberate  resolve  of  the  people 


y 


n 


192     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

themselves,  when  it  is  won  at  the  cost  of  a  hard-fought 
poUtical  struggle,  by  the  appeal  to  reason,  by  a  contest 
involving  widespread  earnestness,  some  self-sacrifice, 
much  serious  attention  to  some  social  problem  and  the 
means  of  solving  it,  then  the  law  is  no  magician's  wand 
helping  people  out  of  trouble  with  no  effort  of  their  own. 
It  is  the  reward  of  effort.  It  is  the  expression  of  a  gen- 
eral resolve.~it  embodies  a  collective  sense  of  respon- 
sibility. It  is,  in  a  word,  something  that  a  mass  of 
people  have  achieved  by  their  combined  efforts  for  their 
common  ends,  just  as  a  well-organized  trade-union  or  a 
friendly  society  is  an  achievement  won  by  combined 
effort  lor  common  ends.  Now  this,  it  may  be  objected, 
is  an  idealized  picture  of  the  working  of  democracy,  and 
I  am  far  from  ignoring  the  seamier  side.  Nevertheless 
in  so  far  as  popular  government  succeeds,  it  does  real- 
ize some  elements  of  this  ideal,  and  just  so  far  the 
older  objection  to  the  extension  of  the  sphere  of  the 
law  which  rests  on  the  danger  of  weakening  the  moral 
fiber  loses  its  strength. 

But  we  can  carry  the  argument  a  step  further.  If 
liberty  is  among  other  things  the  right  of  self-expres- 
sion, this  is  a  right  which  masses  of  men  may  claim 
When  they  want  the  same  thing.  Majorities  will 
'claim  it  as  well  as  minorities,  and  they  will  seek  to  use 
the  means  that  lie  to  hand  for  effectuating  their  claim. 
Now  it  may  be  that  legal  machinery  is  the  only  efficient 
means  for  the  purpose,  and  if  the  members  of  a  majority 
are  debarred  from  the  use  of  such  machinery,  their  will 
is  to  that  extent  frustrated  and  their  right  so  far  denied. 
Now  there  may  be  good  grounds  for  this  denial.  It  may 
be  better  that  a  majority  should  be  prevented  in  any 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  193 

given  instance  from  exercising  its  will.  The  objections 
to  the  use  of  coercion  in  somedirfictions  may  be,  and  for 
my  part  I  should  agree  that  they  are,  so  great  that  it  is/^ 
better  that  the  majority^should  fail_to__getJts  way. 
But  do  not  let  us  shut  our'eyesTo'ffiefactthat  to  insist 
on  this  in  any  case,  whether  for  good  and  sufficient  or 
for  bad  and  insufficient  reasons,  is  alike  to  put  a  re^^- 
straint  on  self-expression,  and  to  that  extent  upon  lib- 
ertyT  The  liberty  of  the  minority  in  such  a  case 
is  (as  always)  a  restraint  upon  the  niajority. 

Two  questions,  it  will  be  seen,  arise  from  this  discus- 
sion. The  first  is,  what  are  those  matters  in  which  the 
majority  can  only  find  self-expression  through  the  ma- 
chinery of  law?  The  second  is,  what  are  those  con- 
siderations which  may  legitimately  restrain  the  majority 
from  exercising  their  power  even  when  as  a  result 
their  'prima  facie  right  of  self-expression  is  defeated. 

The  reply  to  the  first  question  is  in  principle  simple 
enough.  Experience  shows  us  that  there, jare  many 
things  that  can  be  done  by  individual  initiative  and  by 
voluntary  association,  but  that  there  are  also  many 
things  in  which  these  two  agencies  fail.  A  man  may 
worship  God  as  his  own  feelings  dictate  without  com- 
pelling others  to  worship  with  him.  He  may  associate 
himself  with  those  who  are  like-minded.  He  may  form 
a  church  where  all  may  worship  together  after  the 
fashion  upon  which  they  are  agreed  ;  and  their  worship, 
if  it  is  a  worship  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  is  none  the  less 
hearty,  none  the  less  spiritually  effective  because  of  the 
existence  of  others  who  frequent  different  churches  or 
who  frequent  no  church  at  all.  The  effective  formation 
of  religious  organization  then  does  not  depend  upon 


194     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

universal  adhesion,  and  in  carrying  out  their  common 
will,  the  members  of  a  church  have  not  to  depend  on 
securing  the  cooperation  of  those  who  differ  from  them. 
Hence,  for  this  reason  if  for  no  other,  the  religious  life 
of  a  community  may  be  pursued  with  vigor  without 
calling  on  the  state  for  support. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many  cases  in  which 
cooperation,  if  not  universal,  is  altogether  ineffective. 
Take,  as  an  instance,  the  question  of  the  early  closing 
of  shops.  The  great  majority  of  employers  in  a  given 
district  may  desire  to  close  early,  both  for  their  own  sake 
and  for  the  good  of  those  in  their  employment;  but, 
as  every  one  knows,  in  the  world  of  competition  the 
refusal  of  a  handful  of  men,  and  perhaps  even  of  a  single 
tradesman,  to  agree  to  the  common  desire  may  wreck 
the  whole  intention.  Unless  the  minority^can  be 
compelled  to  come  in,  the  majority  cannot  get  their 
way.  In  such  case  it  would  seem  that  an  end,  which  the 
community  holds  valuable  and  which  the  majority  of 
those  affected  by  it  desire,  is  a  fair  subject  for  enforce- 
ment by  the  common  law  with  its  compulsory  powers. 

Again,  paradoxical  as  it  seems  at  first  sight,  it  is  never- 
theless profoundly  true  that  there  are  cases  in  which 
the  interest  not  of  one  man  only  or  of  some  men,  but  of 
all  considered  individually  and  temporarily,  is  opposed 
to  the  interest  of  all  considered  collectively  and  per- 
manently. Thus  it  is  the  interest  of  any  individual 
at  any  moment  to  buy  what  he  wants  as  cheaply  as  he 
can.  But  it  is  quite  possible  that  a  system  of  free 
competition  catering  for  the  temporary  needs  of  each 
individual  purchaser  should  have  the  effect  of  gradually 
and  imperceptibly  lowering  the  standard  of  production 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  195 

by  substituting  cheapness  for  quality.  If  so,  the  pro- 
cess set  up  by  eachman  tollowing  his  immediateint^Bst 
may  result  in  a  general  deterioration  of  standard 
whereby  in  the  end  the  interest  of  each  is  less  eff ectTvely 
served.  Nor  can  the  individual  stand  alone  against 
this  process  by  exercising^  a  more  far-sighted  view. 
He  cannot  res,ist  the  tendency  set  in  motion  and  con- 
stantly  propelled  by  the  pressure  of  immediate  interests. 
It  is  only  concerted  action  that  is  effective  against  the 
pressure  of  the  mass,  and  if  by  such  action  a  higher 
staniiard_of_g.uanty  can  be  permanently  maintained, 
all  are  in  the  end  the  gainers.  To  take  a  slightly 
different  illustration :  any  man  driving  a  motor-car 
wants  to  get  on  as  quickly  as  he  can.  The  same  man 
when  walking  may  be  annoyed  or  endangered  by  the 
speed  of  other  peoples^  cars,  but  by  driving  carefully 
himself  he  cannot  force  others  to  do  the  same.  He 
can  secure  his  safety  only  by  supporting  legislative  and 
general  control.  Once  again :  it  may  be  the  interest 
of  any  particular  employer  to  buy  labor  as  cheaply  as 
possible.  He  cannot,  unless  he  has  exceptional  organiz- 
ing capacity,  pay  more  than  others.  But  it  isjaot  to  ^  ^ 
the  interest  of  employer.a^s_a  whole  that  the  classes 
from  whom  their  work-people  are  drawn  should  de- 
teriorate in  efficiency  and  lose  in  purchasing  power 
through  low  wages  and  bad  industrial  conditions. 
Hence  collectively  they  may  be  ready  to  accept  reg-  ^^ 
ulations  which  individually  they  would  be  powerless 
to  put  in  force. 

-    The  principal  sphere  of  the  state  then  appears  to  \ 
be  in  securing  those  common  ends  in  which  uniformity   ^ 
generally,    concerted    action,  is    necessary. 


\ 


196     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

On  the  other  hand,  purposes  which  can  be  secured 
without  compelling  the  adhesion  of  those  who  do  not 
accept  them  fall  naturally  within  the  sphere  of  in- 
dividual enterprise  and  voluntary  cooperation.     The 
\     function  of  the  state  then  is  to  se£]u:eJhfi_£Qmaion_ends 
which  recommend  themselves  to  the  general  will  and 
;  which  cannot  be  secured  without  compulsion.     Eut  at 
this  point  our  second  question  emerges :    Is  the  general 
^ill,  supposing  that  its  ends  cannot  be  secured  without 
compulsion,  to  be   entirely   unfettered,  or  are  there 
.  some  general  considerations  which  might  still  exercise 
a  restraint  in  favor  of  the  liberty  of  the  individual? 
i     This  brings  us  to  the  question  on  what  that  liberty 
I  is  based.    We  have  seen  that  each'Tnan's  liberty  in- 
volves a  restraint  upon  others,  and  we  are  asked  to 
nvo      conceive  it  now  as  a  restraint_ugon  society  as  jijiiQle. 
v^'  y    On  what  grounds  is  this  restraint  to  be  justified  ?    In 
.  pr       ordinary  phraseology,  it  would  depend  upon  the  rights  of 
j^/  .        the  individual,  and  we  have  here  to  ask  what  is  meant  by 
Sy       .a  right.     A  right  is  generally  said  to  be  the  correlative  of  *^ 
*^Ji^^^\  a  duty.     If  I  have  a  right  against  you,  you  have  some 
>  J^^  duty  towards  me.     The  duty  may  be  quite  general 
^    /'*\     and  purely  negative  in  its  character.     For  instance,  I 
have  a  right  to  walk  along  the  street  without  being 
pushed  off  the  pavement  into  the  mud,  and  your  duty 
is  merely  to  give  me  reasonable  room.     But,  whether 
general  or  special,  we  may  agree  that  the  rights  and 
duties  of  citizens  form  together  a  system  making  up 
as  a  whole  the  moral  order  recognized  by  society.     In 
this  order  each  duty  is,  broadly  speaking,  that  which: 
is  expected  of  the  individual ;    and  each  right  is  that  | 
which  the  individual  expects  of  some  other  person  or 


'^'•-^rri^^' 


Jle^ 


^ 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  197 

of  society  at  large.  Generically,  therefore,  a  right  is  a 
kind  of  expectation ;  but  it  is  not  only  an  expectation, 
but  an  exgectation_iield  J:o  be  justified ;  and  the  im- 
port^-nt  question  is,  on  what^munds^tjiis  jjustific^^ 
is  based.  In  the  first  place,  it  may  be  a  legal  right, 
and  the  justification  then  lies  in  an  appeal  to  law.  But, 
in  addition,  there  are,  or  there  may  be,  rights  which 
the  law  does  not  recognize  and  which  the  moral  con- 
sciousness holds  ought  to  be  recognized.  These  are 
the  moral  or  ethical  rights  of  men.  The  older  thinkers 
/spoke  of  them  as  '' natural  rights,"  but  to  this  phrase]* 
if  uncritically  used,  there  is  the  grave  objection  that_ 
it  suggests  that  such  rights  are  independent  of  society, 
whereas,  if  our  arguments  hold,  there  is  no  moral  order 
indeperident_of_-Soaiety  and  therefore  no  rights  which, 
apart  from  the  social  consciousness,  would  be  recog-^- 
^nized  at  all.  Our  analysis  of  the  term  ''right''  goes  to 
S  show  that  a  right  is  nothing  but  an  expectation  which 
[jv^ill  appeal  to  an  impartial  person.  A  may  make  a 
claim  on  B,  and  B  may  refuse  the  claim.  The  claim 
only  becomes  recognized  as  a  right  if  some  impartial 
third  person  (C)  upholds  A  in  making  it,  and  on  what 
ground  can  C  as  an  impartial  being  base  his  judgment  ? 
As  impartial,  he  is  looking  at  A  and  B  just  as  two 
persons  equally  members  of  the  community  with  him- 
self. If  there  exists  a  rule  recognized  by  the  community 
which  covers  the  case,  no  question  arises.  But  we  are 
looking  at  the  case  in  which  no  rule  exists,  and  C  has 
to  frame  his  decision  on  first  principles.  To  what  in 
such  a  case  can  he  look  except  the  common  good? 
If  he  maintains  as  a  right  a  general  principle  of  action 
incompatible  with  the  good  of  the  community,  he  must 


198     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

hold  that  what  is  right  is  one  thing  and  what  is  good 
another,  and  that  not  merely  by  the  accidental  circum- 
stances of  a  peculiar  case  but  as  a  matter  of  principle. 
Unless  then  we  are  to  suppose  such  deep-seated  con- 
flict in  the  ethical  order  we  must  regard  the  common 
good  as  the  foundation  of  all  personal  rights.  If  that) 
is  so,  the  rights  of  man  are  those  expectations  which 
the  common  good  justify  him  in  entertaining,  and  we 
may  even  admit  that  there  are  natural  rights  of  man  if 
we  conceive  the  common  good  as  resting  upon  certain 
elementary  conditions  affecting  the  life  of  society, 
which  hold  good  whether  people  recognize  them  or  not. 
Natural  rights,  in  that  case,  are  those  expectations  which 
it  would  be  well  for  a  society  to  guarantee  to  its  mem- 
bers, whether  it  does  or  does  not  actually  guarantee 
them.  If  this  view  is  accorded,  the  more  developed 
the  conception  of  the  common  good  the  more  completely 
will  a  society  guarantee  the  natural  rights  of  its  individ- 
ual members.  To  extend  the  conception  of  the  rights 
of  the  individual  will  be  one  of  the  objects  of  states- 
manship ;  to  define  and  maintain  the  rights  of  its! 
members  will  be  the  ever  extending  function  of  govern-J 
ment. 

Any  genuine  right  then  is  one  of  the  conditions  of 
social  welfare,  and  the  conception  of  harmonious 
development  suggests  that  there  will  be  many  such 
conditions  governing  the  various  sides  of  social  life. 
If  so  the  general  conception  of  harmony  implies  that 
these  conditions,  properly  understood,  must  mutually 
define  and  limit  one  another  ;  not  only  so,  it  implies  that 
in  proportion  as  they  are  properly  understood  they  will 
be  found  not  to  conflict  with  one  another  but  to  support  1 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  199 

Land  in  the  end  even  necessitate  one  another.  Now 
it  is  conceivable  that  all  individual  rights,  e.g.  of  person 
and  property,  might  be  brought  under  the  general 
conception  of  liberty.  But  we  need  not  press  this  point. 
We  may  assume  that  there  will  be  various  rights  of  the 
individual,  of  the  family,  and  so  forth,  which  owe  their 
validity  to  the  functions  they  perform  in  the  harmonious 
development  of  society.  It  is  clear  too  that  the 
effective  exercise  of  the  common  will  is  also  for  some 
purposes  —  though  for  what  purpose  in  particular  may- 
be a  matter  on  which  opinion  differs  —  a  condition  of 
the  same  object.  Now  in  general  the  problem  of  jsocial 
philosophy  is  to  define  in  principle,  and  of  statesman- 
ship to  adjust  in  practice  the  bearing  of  these  several 
.conditions.  This  bearing  is  to  be  understood  by  con-' 
sidering  their  social  value,  and  thus  it  remains  to 
state  in  quite  general  terms  the  basis  of  the  value  of 
personal  liberty  on  the  one  hand  and  of  social  control 
on  the  other.  As  to  liberty  in  general,  since  society  is 
made  up  of  persons,  we  prove  its  necessity  sufficiently 
if  we  show  that  a  measure  of  liberty  is  essential  to  the 
development  of  personality.  And  since  personality 
consists  in  rational  determination  by  clear-sighted 
purpose  as  against  the  rule  of  impulse  on  the  one  side 
or  external  compulsion  on  the  other,  it  follows  that 
liberty  of  choice  is  the  condition  of  its  development. 
The  central  condition  of  such  development  is  self- 
<^uidance.  We  should  not  oppose  self-guidance  to 
guidance  by  others  for  the  contact  with  other  minds 
is  an  integral  part  of  the  growth,  intellectual  or  moral, 
of  each  mind.     But  we  must  oppose  it  to  coercion 

jby  external  sanctions,  which  ousts  all  genuinely  ethical 


f\ 


200     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

LiJonsiderations  and  closes  the  door  on  rational  choice.  ] 
'^Liberty  then  is  the  condition  of  mental  and  moral/ 
expansion,  and  of  all  forms  of  associated  as  well  as  per- 1 
sonal  life  that  rest  for  their  value  on  spontaneous! 
feeling  and  the  sincere  response  of  the  intellect  and  of! 
the  will.    It  is  therefore  the  foundation  not  only  oil 
all  that  part  of  life  which  rests  on  personal  affection, 
but  also  of  science  and  philosophy,  of  religion,  art, . 
and  morals.  "^ 

To  recognize  liberty  on  this  side  is  the  duty  of  the 
state,  but  to  recognize  liberty  is  by  no  means  to  abolish 
/     restraint.     On  the  contrary,  it  is  only  by  an  organized^ 
system  of  restraints  that  such  liberty  is  made  availablej 
for  all  members  of  society,  for  the  unpopular  opinions 
as  well  as  the  popular  ones,  for  those  whose  views 
of  life  are  eccentric  as  well  as  for  the  normal  and  the 
commonplace.     Even  in  regard  to  matters  of  conscience 
it  is  only  opinion  and  persuasion  that  can  be  absolutely 
free,  and  even  here  it  must  be  admitted  that  there  are^ 
forms  of  persuasion  that  are  in  fact  coercive,  and  it  is 
fair  for  the  state  to  consider  how  far  the  liberty  of  the' 
*  younger  or  weaker  must  be  protected  against  forms  of 
h^      temptation  which  overcome  the  will.     Apart  from  this 


r 


when  opinion  leads,  however  conscientiously,  to  action, 
f\  \  •  such  action  may  coerce  others,  and  this  would  bring 
the  state  into  play  in  the  name  of  liberty  itself.  It 
may,  more  generally,  infringe  any  right  and  it  is  the 
business  of  social  control  to  adjust  one  right  to  another. 
This  adjustment  is  simply  one  part,  though  one  of 
the  most  important  parts,  of  the  general  function  of ^ 
social  control.  This  function  may  now  be  defined  in 
general  terms  as  that  of  securing  the  best  conditions 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  201 

for  the  common  life  (a)  so  far  as  these  are  best  ob- 
tained by  the  use  of  public  resources  and  governmental 
machinery,  (6)  so  far  as  such  conditions  are  only  ob- 
tainable by  the  use  of  compulsion;    that  is  to  say, 
jvhere  action  is  frustrated  if  it  is  not  universal,  and  again 
where  in  the  absence  of  regulation  one  man  can  directly 
or    indirectly  constrain    another,  infringe    his    rights, 
obstruct  his  rational  choice,  or  take  advantage  of  his 
#  weakness  or  ignorance.     The  first  object  includes  the 
organization  of  public  services  by  the  state  ^  and  the 
provision  for  all  its  members  of  the  external  conditions 
of  a  healthy  and  efficient  civic  life.     To  build  on  this 
foundation  is  the  work  of  the  individual,  and  the  scope 
of  personality  is  increased  in  proportion  as  the  conditions 
j)f  its  effective  development  are  made  universal.     The 
f  extension  of  the  functions  of  the  state  in  this  direction, 
■    accordingly,  is  due  not  to  a  diminished  sense  of  personal 
I    responsibility  but  to  a  heightened  sense  of  collective 
esponsibility.     The  second  case  includes  the  laying 
down  of  cer^in  rules,  as  in  the  adoption  of  general 
holidays,  where  in  the  absence  of  legal  control  a  general 
desire  might  be  thwarted  by  individual  and  perhaps 
quite  selfish  objections.     It  covers,  again,  the  regulation 
of  contract  where  experience  has  shown  that  the  weaker 
party  to  a  bargain  may  be  forced  to  consent  to  that 
which,  if  he  stood  on  equal  terms,  he  would  never  accept. 
In  both  cases  as  has  been  shown  but  particularly  in 
the  latter  the  purpose  of  control  is  rather  to  define 

1  This,  as  remarked  above  (p.  187),  does  not  necessarily  involve 
compulsion,  and  so  far  does  not  affect  the  question  of  the  limits  of 
liberty.  It  does,  however,  intimately  concern  the  cognate  question 
of  the  limits  of  personal  and  collective  responsibility. 


202     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

and  enlarge  the  sphere  of  liberty  than  to  restrict  it. 
There  remains  the  question  of  those  who  are  incapable 

fof  rational  choice,  —  the  feeble-minded  or  the  habitual 
drunkard,  —  for  whom  the  value  of  liberty  does  not 
exist.  To  them  society  owes  the  duties  of  a  guardian," 
and  in  their  case  the  policy  of  constraining  a  man  for 
his  own  good  is  no  self-contradiction,  for  the  *^  good  "  of 
which  they  are  capable  is  not  that  of  personal  develop- 
ment through  the  spontaneous  action  of  thought  and 
feeling  and  will,  but  the  negative  one  of  immunity 
from  the  dangers  into  which  their  helplessness  might 
lead  them.  This  is  the  exception  proving  the  rule  that"! 
a  normal  human  being  is  not  to  be  coerced  for  his  own 
good,  because  as  a  rational  being  his  good  depends  on 
self-determination,  and  is  impaired  or  destroyed  by 
coercion. 

Thus  liberty  and  control  are  not  as  such  opposed.  ^ 

There  are  bordgrloijid^ases  where  honest  thinkers  must 

allow  conflict  to  be  possible,  e.g.  the  conscientious  re- 

V   fusal  of  a  Friend  to  render  military  service  judged  to  be 

necessary  for  the  safety  of  the  community.     But  the 

'  value  of  liberty  is  to  build  up  the  liieof  tt^Q,  mind,  while 

\the  value  of  state  control  lies  in  securing  the  external 
conditions,  including  the  mutual  restraint,  whereby  the, 
life  of  the  mind  is  rendered  secure.  In  the  former 
sphere  compulsion  only  defeats  itself.  In  the  latter 
Hberty  defeats  itself.  Hence  in  the  main  the  extension 
of  control  does  not  impair  liberty,  but  on  the  contrary 
is  itself  the  means  of  extending  liberty  and  may  and 
should  be  conceived  with  that  very  object  in  view. 
Thus  it  is  that  upon  the  whole  we  see  a  tendency  to  the 
removal  of  restraints  in  the  sphere  in  which  whatever 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  203 

there  is  of  value  to  mankind  depends  on  spontaneity 
of  impulse,  free  interchange  of  ideas,  and  voluntary  co- 
operation going  along  with  the  tendency  to  draw  tighter 
the  bonds  which  restrain  men  from  acting  directly  or 
indirectly  to  the  injury  of  their  fellows  and  to  enlarge 
the  borders  of  the  action  of  the  state  in  response  to  a 
developing  sense  of  collective  responsibility.  We  are 
dealing  with  two  conditions  of  harmonious  develop- 
ment apparently  opposed  and  requiring  themselves  to 
be  rendered  harmonious  ^by  careful  appreciation  of 
their  respective  functions^  and  the  general  direction  in 
which  harmony  is  to  be  sought  may  be  expressed  by 
saying  that  the  further  development  of  the  state  lies[ 
in  such  an  extension  of  public  control  as  makes  for  the 
fuller  liberty  of  the  life  of  the  mind. 

The  problem  of  liberty  is  not  the  only  one  raised  by 
the  movement  of  opinion  which  has  been  traced.  There 
are  far-reaching  questions  of  economics  involved,  to  dis- 
cuss which  would  take  us  to  the  foundation  of  the  right 
of  property.  Having,  for  reasons  of  time,  to  confine 
myself  to  one  aspect  of  the  question,  I  choose  that  of  the 
rrelation  of  liberty  to  collective  control  because  it  lies  at 
Lthe  root  of  the  harmonic  conception  of  society.  If  we 
^are  right  in  thinking  that  social  evolution  has  brought , 
us  to  a  point  at  which  the  future  movement  of  society  ■ 
may  be  subjected  to  rational  control,  it  becomes  at  once 
vital  to  determine  how  far  that  control  is  to  be  reconciled 
with  the  old  ideal  of  freedom. 

If  the  above  argument  is  just,  we  may  conclude  that 
the  development  of  the  common  life,  the  collectiye  effort, 
which  has  already  been  in  progress  in  my  country  for  a 
generation  or  more,  is  not  adverse  to  the  freedom,  the 


204     SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY 

responsibility,  or  the  dignity  of  the  individual.     On  the 
contrary  it  has  in  the  past  assisted  and  may  in  the  future 
be  expected  to  further  the  development  of  these  essential 
features  of  a  good  social  order.     A  more  real  freedom, 
a  more  general  and  more  complete  personal  indepen- 
dence, a  more  stable  because  a  more  free  family  life  are 
among  the  prime  objects  of  the  extension  of  social  con- 
trol.    It  is  here  that  we  realise  the  concrete  meaning  of 
the  idea  of  harniony  as  the  touchstone  of  social  develop- 
menit.    All  one-sided  progress  cramps  as  much  in  one  * 
direction  as  it  liberates  in  another.     True  development 
is  not  in  metaphor  but  in  essentials  comparable  to  or- 1  ' 
ganic  growth  —  the  opening  out  of  each  element  f urther-m 
ing  instead  of  retarding  that  of  others.     Such  a  devel6|T^ 
ment,  lastly,  it  has  been  my  endeavor  to  show  is  not  in 
conflict  with  immovable  laws  of  evolution  but  is  continu- 
ous with  the  line  of  advance  which  educed  the  higher 
from  the  lower  animal  forms,  which  evolved  the  human 
out  of  the  animal  species  and  civilized  from  barbaric 
society.     The  essential  condition  of  this  change  was  no? 
the  struggle  for  existence  but  the  rise  and  growth  of 
a  principle  of  organic  harmony  or  cooperation  which 
from  the  first  rise  of  parental  care  begins  to  mitigate, 
and  finally  to  restrict  the  field  of  struggle.     Merely  to 
point  to  the  existence  of  this  tendency  was  not,  we 
admitted,  sufficient  to  justify  it,  but  we  urged  that  its 
existence  and  success  suffice  to  prove  the  feasibility  of 
the  conscious  effort  to  carry  through  the  harmonic  prin^ 
ciple  in  social  life,  and  that  this  is  in  fact  the  guiding! 
principle  of  a  rational  social  philosophy.     To  apply  such 
a  principle,  we  admitted,  is  a  matter  of  infinite  practical 
difficulty,  but  it  nowhere  founders  on  any  theoretic  ob- 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  AND  THE  STATE  205 

jections,  for  no  essential  element  of  social  value  has  to  be 
purchased  at  the  expense  of  the  fundamental  and  irrevo- 
cable loss  of  any  other  element  of  essential  value.     Its  t 
emergence  constitutes  a  turning-point  to  which  all  pre- 
vious progress  leads  up,  and  from  which  further  progress 
will  proceed  with  a  new  directness  of  aim  and  steadiness 
of  tread.     The  keenest  critics  of  the  feasibility  of  social 
progress  we  saw  rest  their  case  on  the  tendency  of  the 
higher  social  ethics  to  preserve  inferior  types  and  so  lead 
to  racial  deterioration.     But  on  this  point  we  saw  that 
if  it  is  true,  which  is  not  yet  proved,  that  selection  re- 
mains essential  to  social  progress,  the  solution  of  the     , 
difficulty  is  to  be  found  in  the  replacement  of  natural 
by  social  selection.     At  many  points  in  the  argument 
limitations  of  time  have  forced  me  to  confine  myself  to 
mere  illustrations  of  method  in  place   of  the  full  and 
lengthy  statement  of  evidence  which  is  requisite  for 
proof.     Those  methods  I  would  hope  that  some  of  you 
would  follow  out  for  yourselves,  so  as  to  verify  or  correct 
the  conclusion  to  which  I  have  sought  to  lead  you.     That 
conclusion  I  may  be  allowed  to  state  provisionally  and  it, 
y  is  simply  this :   that  the  conception  of  social  progress  \ 
as  a  deliberate  movement  towards  the  reorganization  of 
society  in  accordance  with  ethical  ideas  is  not  vitiated  by 
'    any  contradiction.     It  is  free  from  any  internal  dishar- 
.    mony.     Its  possibility  rests  on  the  facts  of  evolution, 
j   of  the  higher  tendencies  of  which  it  is  indeed  the  outcome, 
j  It  embodies  a  rational  philosophy,  it  gives  scope  and 
'   meaning  to  the  best  impulses  of  human  nature,  and  a 
i  new  hope  to  the  suffering  among  mankind. 


INDEX 


Action,  collective,  Extension  of,  166 

Age  of  Reason,  The,  13 

Alternatives,  Choice  of,  23 

Arbitration,  Compulsory,  170;  con- 
ciliation boards  of,  170 

Army  of  men  and  women  at  work, 
2-3 ;  criticized  as  guerilla  bands, 
3-4 

Ashanti,  Power  of  the  chief  in,  135 

Assumptions,  Certain  initial,  83-84 

Athens,  Slave-holding  democracy  of, 
141,  142;   despotism  in,  142 

Authority,  Transmutation  of  force 
into,  137-39;  the  duties  of,  138- 
39 ;  development  of  citizenship  at 
expense  of,  142 ;  power  of,  147 ; 
the  system  of,  148 

Babylon,  Sanctity  of  the  ruler  in, 
135 ;   duty  of  the  superior  in,  138 

Barrington,  Miss  Amy,  and  Prof. 
Pearson,  Dogmatic  conclusions  of, 
60-61 

Bateson,  The  newer  discoveries  of, 
68 ;   on  genetic  knowledge,  78-79 

Benthamites,  Utilitarian  creed  of  the, 
167 

Bias  of  social  memory,  The,  2 

Biological  alternative.  Sufficient  rea- 
son for  declining  the,  24 

Biological  conditions  of  human  so- 
ciety, 13-16 ;  not  a  barrier  to 
progress,  80 

Biological  criticism  of  society.  The, 
22 

Biological  elements  in  a  crowd,  31 

Biological  evolution  and  social  prog- 
ress, causes  of  contrast  between, 
28-33 

Biological  investigation,  Darwin's 
impulse  to,  17 


Biological  principles.  The  uncritical 
application  of,  to  social  progress 
results  in  contradiction,  28 

Biologist,  The,  and  the  problem  of 
social  betterment,  20-25 ;  his 
theory  a  barren  tautology,  24 ; 
and  the  standard  of  value,  24-25 ; 
and  sociological  conditions,  67 

Birth-rate,  General  fall  in  the,  15; 
and  economic  conditions,  67-68 

Blending,  Peculiarities  of  quality 
traceable  to  laws  of,  69-70 

Blood,  The  tie  of,  129 

Board  of  Trade,  Demand  for  inter- 
vention of,  in  industrial  disputes, 
170 

Bonds  for  human  society,  128 

British  Empire,  The,  an  oligarchy, 
144 ;   and  its  dependencies,  145 

Buckle  and  the  records  of  humanity, 
17 

Caesar,  Julius,  an  exceptional  ruler, 

136 
Capacity,  Mental  or  spiritual,  91 
Caste  and  class  distinctions  broken 

down  by  civilization,  27 
Caste  system,  The,  a  product  of  social 

evolution,  8 
Change,  Every,  provokes  reactions,  6 
Chief,  Development  of  the  powers  of 

the,  134-35 
Child,  unborn.  Effect  of  influences  on 

mother  upon  the,  63-64 
Childhood,  a  period  of  helplessness, 

176 
Child-labor,  Restriction  of,  168-69 
Children,  The  home  environment  of, 

57-60 ;  intelligence  of,  58-59 
Children  of  infected  stocks.  Preven- 
tion of,  42,  43 


207 


208 


INDEX 


Chinese  theory  of  government,  The, 
137.  138 

Choice,  Human,  an  actual  force  in 

•    the  evolution  of  society,  82 

Citizen,  Duty  of  the,  to  the  state,  184 

Citizenship,  The  principle  of,  139-48 ; 
the  citizens  are  the  state,  139-40  ; 
earliest  form  of  state,  141 ;  the 
city  state  incapable  of  expansion, 
142-43 ;  conquest  incompatible 
•with,  143-44 ;  the  problem  of 
nationality,  146-47;  union  ren- 
dered possible  by,  147-48;  the 
system  of,  148;  opposed  to  force, 
149 

City  state,  The,  of  ancient  Greece, 
141-43 

Civilization,  The  history  of,  13  ;  meas- 
uring the  movement  of,  126:  for 
the  first  time  has  the  upper  hand  in 
our  own  day,  163 ;  a  new  type  of, 
164 

Civil  Service,  Result  of  reform  of  the, 
183 

Clan  and  commune,  The  simple  life 
of,  cancelled  by  force  and  authority, 
149 

Class  distinctions  defended  on 
eugenic  grounds,  47 

Classification,  of  a  social  morphology, 
118-20;   true  affinities  in  a,  124 

Collective  activity,  Great  extension 
of,  184 

Common  life.  The  conception  of  a, 
extended  to  the  community,  152- 
63 ;  securing  the  best  conditions 
for  the,  the  function  of  social  con- 
trol, 200-2 ;  development  of  the, 
not  adverse  to  the  freedom  of  the 
individual,  203-4 

Compulsion  of  the  state  on  the  indi- 
vidual, 187-88 ;  kind  of,  necessary, 
188-89,  201 

Comte  and  the  records  of  humanity, 
17 

Contract,  Evils  from  the  regime  of 
free,  182  ;  regulation  of,  201-2 

Control  over  nature  the  root  of  social 
inequality,  163 

Cooperation,  the  ideal  of  harmonious 
development,  185 ;  how  far  social, 


can  be  furthered  by  the  state,  189 ; 
ineffective,  194 ;  rise  and  growth  of 
principle  of,  204 

Cooperators,  4 

Crime,  Diminution  of,  50 

Criminology,  The  imperfectly  solved 
problems  of,  151 

Criticism,  Common  characteristics 
of  literary,  1 

Crowd,  The  social  phenomenon  of  a, 
30-32 ;  interaction  of  personal 
forces  in  a,  31 ;  at  a  London  cross- 
ing, 32 

Custom,  Sacredness  of,  in  the  primi- 
tive community,  137 

Custom  and  authority,  Order  pro- 
duced by,  32-33 

Customs  maintained^"by  the  social 
tradition  control  the  individual,  94 ; 
difference  between  laws  and,  140- 
41 

Dahomey,  Power  of  the  chief  in,  135 

Darwin,  Relation  of,  to  evolution,  17- 
18;  and  Newton,  18;  main  effect 
of  work  of,  18-19;  his  conception 
of  the  struggle  for  existence,  107 ; 
and  social  evolution,  112-13 

DeVries,  The  newer  discoveries  of,  68 

Death-rate,  Decline  of  the,  50 

Decay  of  nations,  The,  lacks  his- 
torical proof,  53 

Dependencies,  The  government  of, 
144-45 

Despotic  principle,  The,  in  a  free  com- 
munity, 142 

Destitution,  The  test  of,  eliminated, 
172,  174 

Deterioration,  physical.  Committee 
on,  49-50 ;  process  of,  not  begun, 
51 

Development,  Meaning  of,  84-85 ; 
involves  quantitative  growth  and 
increase,  85 ;  how  harmonious, 
applies,  91 ;  lines  of  a  significant, 
147 

Development,  harmonious,  Ideal  of, 
is  cooperation,  185 ;  many  condi- 
tions of  social  welfare  under,  198- 
99 ;  two  conditions  of,  203 ;  com- 
parable to  organic  growth,  204 


INDEX 


209 


Disestablishment,  Little  headway  for, 

in  England,  181 
Disestablishment     of     the     English 

Church  in  Wales,  Agitation  for  the, 

181 

East,  Rise  of  a  new  spirit  in  the,  144 

Education,  Effect  of,  57 

Education,  public,  The  State  and, 
180-82 

Egypt,  Ancient,  Sanctity  of  the  ruler 
in,  135 ;  credit  for  beneficence 
claimed  by  rulers  in,  139 

Elderton,  Ethel  M.,  "The  Relative 
Strength  of  Nurture  and  Nature," 
55  u. ;  on  measuring  the  effect  of 
environment,  57-60. 

Elimination  of  the  unsuccessful,  53- 
55 

Empire,  One  man  cannot  govern  a 
great,  136 

Endogamy,  The  principle  of,  132 

Environment,  Improvement  of,  has 
no  effect  on  the  stock,  49,  55  ;  as- 
sumption that,  meant  race  prog- 
ress, 55;  effect  of,  56-60;  the 
social,  must  be  established  upon 
ethical  lines,  74 

Equality,  Question  of  meaning  of, 
151-52 

Ethical  ideas  and  evolutionary  pro- 
cesses, 9-10  ;  advance  of,  39 

Ethical  principles  cannot  be  muti- 
lated, 27  ;   advance  of,  39 

Ethics,  The  highest,  23 

Eugenics,  The  new  doctrine  of,  28 ; 
value  and  limitations  of,  40-79 ; 
needs  for  success  in,  42-43 ;  the 
case  of,  at  its  strongest,  43-44 ; 
application  of,  to  the  feeble- 
minded, 45-46 ;  on  physiological 
or  medical  lines,  46  ;  class  distinc- 
tions a  basis  for,  46-48;  political 
eugenists,  48 ;  possible  true  prob- 
lem of,  69-70  ;  the  general  problem 
of,  71 

Eugenists,  The  insistent  school  of,  4 

Evils,  Persistent  efforts  to  discover 
and  eradicate  causes  of,  2-4 

Evolution  defined  as  any  sort  of 
growth,  8 ;  no  proof  of  goodness,  8 ; 


and  progress,  not  the  same  thing, 
11;  the  conception  of,  16;  not 
confined  to  biology,  17;  progress 
to  be  compared  with  the  actual 
course  of,  80;  Darwin  and,  112- 
14;  a  process  from  the  simple  to 
the  complex,  114 

Evolution  and  progress,  149-65;  the 
study  of,  tells  us  what  may  be,  158; 
the  inductive  theory  of,  lies  at  the 
back  of  any  sound  social  philosophy, 
165 

Exogamy,  The  principle  of,  131-32 

Family,  The  mean  size  of  the,  64-65; 
causes  of  the  limitation  of  the,  66; 
has  no  connection  with  social  legis- 
lation, 67;  best  form  of  organiza- 
tion of,  89;  in  lower  forms  of 
society,  129-31;  the  paternal,  af- 
fords a  more  solid  basis  for  social 
order,  133 

Family  unity.  The  ideal  of,  89 

Father,  The  pqsition  of  the,  domi- 
nates the  family,  129-30 

Father-right,  and  mother-right, 
Blending  of,  133-34 

Feeble-minded,  Application  of  eu- 
genics to  the,  45-46,  76 ;  society 
owes  the  duties  of  a  guardian  to  the, 
202 

Fertility,  of  the  poorer  classes,  46,  48 ; 
table  of  comparative,  64 ;  and  indi- 
vidual development  vary  inversely, 
65 ;  diminished,  no  argument 
against  ameliorative  legislation,  68 

Fit,  Who  are  the,  22 ;  a  hopeless 
missfit  term,  24,  52-53 ;  sterility 
of  the,  48 ;  propagation  of  the, 
should  be  encouraged,  49 ;  birth- 
rate of  the,  diminishing,  72 ;  can 
find  their  place,  76. 

"Fit"  nation.  The  eugenic  would 
evolve  a,  77 

Fluctuations  not  permanently  trans- 
mitted, 68 

Force,  not  a  basis  of  social  life,  136; 
transmuted  into  authority,  137, 
147 

Freedom,  from  alien  government, 
190-91 


210 


INDEX 


Functions,  Moral  and  spiritual,  of  the 
state,  188 ;  the  legitimate,  188-89  ; 
sphere  of,  how  determined,  189  ; 
corollary  to  ethical  basis  of,  191 

Generic  forms  and  specific  types,  113 

Genetics,  Sociological  application  of 
the  science  of,  77 ;  Professor  Bate- 
son  on,  78-79 

Germ-plasm,  Possible  effects  of  influ- 
ences on  the,  62-64 

Good  for  man.  The,  how  found,  83-84 

Government,  The  growth  of,  and  its 
relation  to  liberty,  125 ;  of  Ben- 
tham's  day,  a  close  and  corrupt 
corporation,  183 

Greco-Roman  culture  maintained  a 
losing  fight  against  barbarization, 
163 

Greek  freedom,  Real  loss  in  the 
destruction  of,  159,  160 

Group-morality,  26-28 ;  the  ideal  of, 
self-contradictory,  27 ;  obligations 
of,  less  than  those  of  common 
morality,  27 

Growth  of  the  state,  The,  126-48 

Guerilla  bands  of  inefficient  workers, 
3-4 

Happiness,  Some  form  of,  good,  83 ; 
the  idea  of,  92 

Harmonic  principle.  The,  in  social 
life,  204 ;  its  emergence  a  turning- 
point,  205 

Harmony,  between  the  claims  of 
different  persons,  86-87 ;  in  the 
manifold  developments  of  life,  92- 
93 ;  conditions  of,  93 ;  essential 
conditions  of,  realized,  153  ;  in  the 
development  of  personal  life,  185 ; 
the  touchstone  of  social  develop- 
ment, 204 

Harvard  graduates.  Low  fertility  of, 
65 

Health,  Improvement  of  general,  50 

Hellenic  civilization,  a  tiny  islet  in  a 
world  of  far  lower  culture,  163 

Heredity  remains  though  traditions 
change,  37-38 

Hierarchies,  Variety  of,  138 

Highland  clan,  Powers  of  the  chief  in 
the,  134 


Historic  progress,  Interpretation  of, 
156 

Hours  oi  labor  limited  by  law,  169 

Housing  and  sanitary  reform,  Apos- 
tles of,  4 

Human  beings,  Malthus'  law  of  in- 
crease of,  14 

Human  nature,  The  state  inadequate 
to  the  subtlety  of,  187 

Humanitarian  feeling,  A  deepening 
of,  183-84 

Humanity,  Continuous  deterioration 
of,  may  be  proved  from  literature, 
1 ;  ups  and  downs  of,  13 ;  the 
supreme  society,  88  ;  development 
of,  th.e  directing  principle  of 
human  endeavor,  155 

Hunter,  The  primitive,  and  the 
modern  laborer,  160 

Hypothesis,  A  good  evolutionary, 
1 13  ;  legitimate  vs.  illegitimate  use 
of,  113 

Ideals,  Conflict  of,  185 

Ideas,  Propagation  of,  in  three  ways, 
36 ;  precede  the  means  of  expres- 
sion, 93 

Idler,  Provision  for  the  determined, 
179-80 

Imitation  not  a  simple  term,  35 ;  two 
types  of,  36-37 

Incidence  of  taxation,  67 

Individual,  Not  the  inherent  qualities 
but  the  actual  life  of  the,  to  be 
regarded,  62 ;  the  average,  75 ; 
manifold  relations  of  each,  88 ; 
controlled  by  the  customs  of  social 
tradition,  94 ;  a  member  and  ser- 
vant of  the  society  of  mankind, 
155 ;  relation  of  the,  to  the  state, 
an  unsolved  problem,  166-70 ; 
sphere  of  collective  responsibility 
for  welfare  of,  extended,  180 ;  and 
the  state,  185-205 ;  ultimate  lib- 
erty of  an,  in  the  state,  187; 
rights  of  the,  189,  196-98  ;  interest 
of  the,  opposed  to  that  of  all, 
194-95 ;  basis  of  liberty  of  the, 
196-98 

Individual,  Relation  between  the,  and 
society,  56 


INDEX 


211 


Individual  development  and  fertility 
vary  inversely,  65 

Individual  enterprise,  Sphere  of,  196 

Individuals,  Qualities  of,  determined 
the  nature  of  their  interactions,  40, 
41 ;  society  composed  of,  29,  40  ; 
variations  of,  69  ;  society  exists  in, 
85  ;   social  relations  of,  85 

Industrial  contracts.  Growth  of 
public  control  over,  168-70 

Industrial  development,  Steps  of, 
readily  traced,  154 

Industrial  regulation.  Extension  of 
public  responsibility  in,  168-70 

Industrial  training,  A  system  of,  for 
the  unemployed,  180 

Infantile  death-rate,  Decline  of  the, 
49 

Infertility  of  the  best  stocks,  64 

Inheritance,  Competent  knowledge  of 
laws  of,  42 

"Inheritance  of  Vision,  The,"  by 
Miss  Barrington  and  Prof.  Pear- 
son, 60-62 

Insanity,  Increase  of,  51 

Institutions,  Analogical  resemblances 
between,  122-23 ;  the  principle  or 
spirit  of,  to  be  examined,  124  ;  con- 
ditions traced  in  the  history  of, 
156 ;  definite,  the  life  of  the  state, 
186-87 

Insurance  against  unemployment. 
Scheme  of,  178 

Intellectuals,  English,  Low  fertility 
of,  65 

Intelligence  of  children  measured,  58- 
59 

Interaction  of  human  beings  the 
fundamental  fact  of  social  life,  30, 
31,  33,  40 

Interest,  Individual,  opposed  to 
collective,  194-95 

Interests,  Mutuality  of,  127-28 

Internationalism,  Development  of  the 
civic  principle  bound  up  with,  145 

Interplay  of  human  motives,  33 

Ireland,  Increase  of  lunacy  in,  51  n. 

Irish  Church,  Disestablishment  of 
the,  181 

Iroquois,  The  totemic  and  tribal 
bonds  of  the,  133 


Japan,  Rise  of,  144 

Jones,  Henry,  on  relation  between  the 
individual  and  society,  56 

Judgment,  No  progress  without  the 
approval  of  rational,  11 

Jus  connuhii,  132 

Justice,  Social  and  economic,  as 
eugenic  agencies,  53 ;  evolution  of 
the  idea  of,  150-51 ;  a  means  of 
maintaining  right  and  redressing 
wrong,  151 ;  of  impartial,  152 

King,  The  actual  power  of  a,  limited, 
136 ;  the  fountain  of  justice,  137 

Kinship,  in  lower  forms  of  society, 
129 ;  relation  of  mother  and  chil- 
dren, 129  ;  the  patriarchate,  129- 
30;  mother-right,  130-31;  ex- 
ogamy, 131-32;  endogamy,  132; 
the  paternal  family  the  stronger 
basis  of,  133  ;  the  ties  of,  147,  148 ; 
the  system  of,  148 

Knowledge,  The  development  of,  154 

Knowledge  and  industry,  Rapid  and 
certain  advance  in,  39 

Labor,  State  control  over,  167-70 

Labor  colony  for  idlers,  179 

Labor  exchanges.  The,  and  the  un- 
employed, 179-80 

Laissez-faire  principle.  Predominance 
of  the,  168 

Land  questions.  Enthusiasts  find,  at 
the  root  of  all  good  and  evil,  3-4 

Language  a  social  product,  93 

Law,  A,  in  science,  and  in  social  evo- 
lution, 103-6 ;  the  true,  of  evolu- 
tion, 106 

Law  as  a  rule  imposed  by  a  superior, 
191 ;  as  the  expression  of  a  general 
resolve,  191-92 

Laws,  State,  186 ;  have  force  behind 
them,  187 

Liberals  and  Radicals,  The  older 
school  of  English,  advocated  re- 
stricting the  sphere  of  the  state, 
167 

Liberty,  The  ultimate,  of  individuals 
in  a  voluntary  association  and  in 
a  state,  187 ;  no  social,  without 
social  restraint,   189;    as  a  social 


212 


INDEX 


conception,  189-90;  a  problem  of 
organizing  restraints,  190;  as  the 
right  of  self-expression,  a  right 
masses  may  claim,  192 ;  of  the 
individual,  196-98;  as  a  restraint 
upon  society,  196;  necessity  of, 
199;  final  definition  of,  200; 
recognition  of,  does  not  abolish 
restraints,  200;  and  control  not 
opposed,  202-3 

Liberty,  personal,  Basis  of  the  value 
of,  199-200 

Liberty,  Political  and  civil,  as  eugenic 
agencies,  53 ;  conception  of,  166 ; 
of  the  individual,  166-67;  ques- 
tion of  kind  of,  182 

Life,  human,  Possibility  of  a  har- 
monious development  of,  no  dream, 
165 

Life,  Some  kind  of,  good  for  man,  83  ; 
the  fuller,  the  more  desirable,  83, 
91 

Life,  The  higher,  a  result  of  mutual 
aid,  23 

London  crossing.  Crowd  handled  at  a, 
32 

Lower  Empire,  Declining  ages  of  the, 
159 

Lyer,  Dr.  Muller,  "Phasen  der 
Kultur,"  126 

Majorities,  The  rights  of,  192 ;  may 
be  denied,  192-94  ;  self-expression 
for,  through  machinery  of  law,  193  ; 
right  of,  defeated,  194 

Malthus'  law  of  population,  13-14 

Malthusians,  The,  14-15 

Man  reacts  to  new  circumstances,  15 ; 
moved  by  the  knowledge  of  ends, 
16 ;  the  dominant  animal,  25 ; 
questions  about,  115-16;  sciences 
which  deal  with,  116 

Manchester  School,  National  liberty 
the  center  of  all  things  to  the, 
167 

Marriage,  Types  of,  120-23 ;  in  an- 
cient Rome,  132 ;  extension  of 
rights  of,  132 

Mating,  Selective,  the  possible  true 
problem  of  eugenics,  69-70 

Maudlin  sentiment,  21 . 


Medieval  city,  Real  loss  in  the  decay 
of  the,  159 

Men  of  the  reindeer  period.  Disap- 
pearance of  the,  162 

Merovingian  period,  Barbaric  anar- 
chy of  the,  159 

Metal,  sheet  of,  with  a  dint  in, 
Spencer's  illustration  of  the,  5-6 

Miner's  Act,  The  English.  169 

Misery  an  evil,  83 

Mother,  Effect  of  influences  on  the, 
upon  the  unborn  child,  63-64 

Mother  and  children,  The  relation  of, 
129-31 

Mother-right,  Descent  by,  130-31; 
the  natural  family  never  complete 
under,  133 

Mothers,  The  universal  property  of, 
129 

Mudge,  G.  P.,  reviewing  Bateson  in 
the  Eugenic  Review,  77 

Mutations,  of  permanent  significance, 
68 ;  definite,  the  basis  of  racial 
progress,  70-71 

Mutual  aid,  the  persistent  enemy  of 
progress,  22-23  ;  voluntary  organ- 
ization of,  191 

Napoleon  an  exceptional  ruler,  136 

Nationality,  A  common,  140 ;  the 
problem  of,  in  the  state,  146-47 ; 
the  sentiment  of,  146 

Natural  rights,  A  social  order 
founded  on,  13 

Natural  selection.  Assumption  that 
the  universe  progresses  by,  9  ;  Dar- 
win's principle  of,  18-19 ;  the 
foundation  of  all  progress,  22 ; 
restricted  by  mutual  aid,  23 ; 
replaced  by  rational,  28,  41 ; 
defended  by  the  political  eugenists, 
48-49 ;  suspension  of,  49 ;  does 
suspension  of,  lower  the  racial 
standard,  51-55 ;  a  permanent 
necessity  of  racial  progress,  70 ; 
Darwin's  theory  of,  113-14  ;  prob- 
able triumphs  of,  162  ;  replaced  by 
social  selection,  205 

Nature  and  nurture,  55-56,  57 ;  no 
adequate  means  of  measurement  of, 
61-62 


INDEX 


213 


Neolithic  and  Paleolithic  epochs,  162- 

63 
Nicholas  I  and  Russia  governed  by 

clerks,  136 

Old  age  not  the  only  period  of  help- 
iPssriPss    I/O 

Old  Age  Pensions  Act  of  1908,  173- 
74;  principle  of  the,  175;  argu- 
ments against  and  for,  175-76 

Opinion,  The  actual  movement  of, 
184 ;  in  the  light  of  social  theory, 
185 

Optimism,  Speculative,  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  13 

Orange  Colony,  Autonomy  extended 
to  the,  144 

Orbit,  Determining  an,  105 

Order,  Extension  and  solidity  of,  152  ; 
the  most  stable,  based  on  freedom, 
152-53 ;  antithesis  between,  and 
liberty,  183 

Organism,  An,  is  a  whole  consisting  of 
interdependent  parts,  87 

Organization,  Improved,  does  not 
imply  improved  individuals,  30  n. 

Oriental  civilizations  subject  to  del- 
uges of  barbarism,  163 

Orientals,  Principles  of  liberty  cannot 
be  denied  to  the,  145 

Pan-Hellenic  sentiment  and  the 
spirit  of  autonomy,  164 

Parentage,  The  claim  to,  42 ;  a  case 
for  forbidding,  45 

Parental  love.  The  operation  of,  23 

Parental  responsibility,  Increased 
sense  of,  66-67  ;  undermined,  89  ; 
limits  of  sphere  of,  89 ;  failure  of, 
in  education,  90 ;  and  the  state, 
90 

Past,  The,  appears  in  a  halo  of 
romance,  1-2 

Patriarchate,  The,  130 

Pauper,  The  problem  of  the,  171-72 

Pauperism,  Decline  of,  50 ;  a  heredi- 
tary taint,  74-75 

Pearson,  Professor,  "The  Problem  of 
Practical  Eugenics,"  64 ;  see  also 
Barrington,  Miss  Amy  and 

Pensions,  Old  Age,  173-76 ;  for  other 


periods   of  helplessness   proposed, 
176-78 

Personal  experience,  how  made  up, 
94 

Personal  liberty,  Restrictions  of,  181 ; 
basis  of  the  value  of,  199-200 

Personality  defined,  199-200 

Pessimism,  Note  of,  in  literature  of 
the  day,  1-3 

Philosophy  of  history,  17 

Physical  conditions  influencing  action 
of  a  crowd,  31 

Poor  Law  Commission  of  1834,  Views 
of  the,  170-71 

Poor  Law  Commission,  Report  of,  in 
1909,  172 ;  views  of  the  minority, 
172 

Poor  Law  Reports  criticized  by  the 
eugenics,  72-73 

Position  in  society,  Forces  which 
determine  a  man's,  47-48 

Poverty,  provision  for.  Change  in 
public  opinion  on,  170-72 

Prestige,  A  scientific,  18 

Prevention  and  cure,  Principles  of, 
151 

Primitive  man  the  victim  of  natural 
selection,  162 

Process  of  things  has  nothing  to  do 
with  value,  9 

Progress,  Meaning  of,  1-16 ;  pre- 
liminary definition  of,  7-9  ;  differ- 
ence between  evolution  and,  7-8, 
11-12;  a  possibility  of  evolution, 
8 ;  connotes  value,  9  ;  the  realiza- 
tion of  an  ethical  order,  12  ;  objec- 
tion to,  founded  on  history,  12- 
13  ;  the  biological  argument,  13  ; 
Malthus'  natural  law,  13-15;  new, 
difficulties,  16 ;  and  the  struggle 
for  existence,  17-39 ;  standard  of 
value  of,  24 ;  not  racial  but  social, 
39 ;  depends  on  survival  of  the 
best,  54-55 ;  human,  social  not 
racial,  65,  80;  a  definition  of,  re- 
quired, 80 ;  the  movement  by 
which  harmony  is  realized,  93 ; 
real  and  fundamental,  152 ;  the 
work  of,  unfinished,  153  ;  the  reali- 
zation of  the  conditions  of  full 
social  cooperation,  156 ;   a  genuine 


214 


INDEX 


possibility,  159 ;  an  optimistic 
belief  in,  may  be  nursed,  159  ; 
theory  of  continuous  automatic 
inevitable,  impossible,  160 ;  the 
positive  view  of,  161 ;  uneven 
nature  of,  intelligible,  162 

Progress  of  organic  forms  by  a  con- 
tinuous struggle  for  existence,  18- 
19 

Property,  Respect  for,  123 

Prophecies  the  causes  of  their  own 
fulfilment,  81 

Psychology,  Comparative,  116-17; 
the  of,  117 

Psychology  of  a  crowd,  30-31,  35; 
all  higher,  social,  93 

Public  assistance  as  a  preventive, 
172-73 

Public  works  should  be  laid  out  for 
the  unemployed,  178 

Qualities,  Social  order  the  outcome  of 
individual,  41 ;  that  should  be 
extinguished,  43 ;  that  bring  men 
to  the  top,  47-48 

Quality,  Is  a  distinct,  impressed  on 
the  individual,  perpetuated  in  the 
stock  ?  62-64 

Race,  The,  has  been  relatively  stag- 
nant, 39 ;  doomed,  49  ;  effect  on, 
of  breeding  inferior  stocks,  68 

Race,  The,  of  higher  powers,  en- 
slaves the  weaker,  163 

Race  and  environment,  55,  64 

Race  deterioration,  Absence  of  induc- 
tive evidence  of,  51 

Race  suicide,  Alarmist  talk  of,  16 

Racial  and  social  progress.  Distinc- 
tion between,  55-57 

Racial  level,  The,  41 

Racial  progress  dependent  on  definite 
mutations,  68-69 

Racial  standard.  Variations  of  the, 
52-53 

Rates,  Burden  of  the,  67-68 

Rational  selection,  to  replace  natural 
selection,  28,  41,  75;  a  legitimate 
object,  41 

Redress  for  the  individual  becomes 
the  concern  of  government,  151 


Reformers,  Efforts  of,  not  wasted,  3 ; 
the  sectional  spirit  among,  3-4; 
work  of,  accomplished  at  vast 
expense  and  waste,  4 

Religion,  Bond  of  a  common,  128 

Representation,  The  principle  of,  in 
the  modern  state,  143 

Reproduction,  Qualitative  vs.  quan- 
titative, 66 

Resemblances,  Analogical,  122-23 

Responsibility,  Deepening  sense  of 
collective,  183-84,  201,  203 

Retaliation,  The  idea  of,  limited  to 
compensation  or  restitution,  151 

Right,  Meaning  of  a,  196-98 ;  correl- 
ative of  a  duty,  196  ;  legal,  moral, 
or  ethical,  197 ;  any  genuine,  a 
condition  of  social  welfare,  198 

Rights  enforced  by  society.  Question 
of  what,  151 ;  the  common  good 
the  foundation  of  all  personal,  198 ; 
natural,  197-98 ;  all  individual, 
included  in  liberty,  199 

Roman,  The,  civilized  enough  to 
recognize  Hellenic  superiority,  163 

Roman  decadence,  Half-told  tale  of, 
53-54 

Roman  population.  Lamentations 
over  decay  of,  unfounded,  53 

Roman  state,  Deep-seated  injury  in 
the  breakup  of  the,  159  ;  could  not 
reconcile  liberty  with  empire,  164 

Ruler,  Divine  right  of  the,  137 

Russia  governed  by  ten  thousand 
clerks,  136 

Savage  and  civilized  man.  Life  of, 
compared,  12-13 

Science  is  social  knowledge  and  has 
permanency,  95 

Secondary  education  provided,  181 

Sectional  spirit,  The  driving  force  of 
all  with  the,  4 

Selection  necessary  to  racial  progress, 
41-42 

Self-guidance,  199-200 

Sensitiveness  to  social  ailments 
widely  diffused,  2-3 

Shops,  Early  closing  of,  194 

Sickness  and  invalidity.  Scheme  of  in- 
surance for,  before  Parliament,  177 


INDEX 


215 


Slave  or  serf,  The,  compares  un- 
favorably with  the  free  savage,  160 

Social  betterment.  The  true  problem 
of,  to  the  biologist,  20-25 

Social  bond.  Nature  of  the,  126; 
mutual  interest,  127-28 ;  principles 
of  social  union,  128 

Social  changes.  Interrelation  of,  3-4 ; 
character  and  rapid  development 
of,  38 ;  determined  by  modifications 
of  traditions,  39 

Social  conscience  a  factor  in  progress, 
48 

Social  control,  Basis  of  the  value  of, 
199 ;  business  of,  to  adjust  one 
right  to  another,  200 ;  the  func- 
tion of,  defined,  200-2 ;  of  those 
incapable  of  rational  choice,  202  ; 
liberty  and,  not  opposed,  202-3 ; 
prime  objects  of  extension  of,  204 

Social  cooperation.  Ordered,  76,  148 ; 
changes  for  advancement  of,  152 

Social  development  distinct  from  the 
organic  changes  known  to  biology, 
29 ;  biological  factors  have  little 
share  in,  38  ;  is  good,  83  ;  is  indi- 
vidual development,  85 ;  a  move- 
ment towards  a  fuller  life,  85 ;  in- 
volves the  harmonious  develop- 
ment of  the  constituent  members  of 
society,  87,  91-92;  a  very  wide 
genus,  92  ;  not  in  conflict  with  the 
laws  of  evolution,  204 

Social  effort,  Object  of,  the  realiza- 
tion of  ethical  ends,  11 

Social  evolution.  The  subject-matter 
of,  7 ;  defined,  8 ;  a  caste  system 
a  product  of ,  8 ;  a  process  in,  not 
a  phase  of,  social  progress,  8-10 ; 
treated  by  sbciological  methods, 
17 ;  the  fundamental  fact  of,  33, 
40;  tendency  of  the  changes  in, 
102 ;  ambiguity  of  the  term  law  of, 
103 ;  two  objects  for  the  student 
of,  107;  the  broad  trend  of,  107; 
the  permanent  conditions  of  the 
actual  movement  of  society,  108 ; 
a  formula  of  synthesis,  108-9 ; 
relation  of  the  history  of  science  to, 
109-10 ;  to  find  unity  in,  no  simple 
matter,  110;   of  a  country,  a  part 


of  the  evolution  of  civilization,  110 ; 
we  must  admit  divergent  lines  of, 
111 ;  a  morphology  the  foundation 
of,  111-12;  Darwin  and,  112-13; 
eminently  tortuous,  149  ;  irregular 
and  incomplete,  151-52  ;  ultimate 
reality  of,  154 ;  ends  in  a  demand 
for  a  social  philosophy,  164 ;  history 
of,  ends  in  a  problem,  166;  point 
reached  by,  203 

Social  fact,  The,  distinct  from  the 
biological  and  the  psychological,  33 

■Social  group.  Survival  value  of  the, 
25-26 ;  each,  has  its  claim  to  share 
in  social  development,  88 

Social  harmony  and  the  social  mind, 
80-101 

Social  history  controlled  by  intelli- 
gence, 165 

Social  improvement  not  the  same  as 
racial  improvement,  40 

Social  institutions.  Effect  of,  not  to 
be  understood  in  biological  terms, 
56 

Social  legislation,  Eugenic  writers  on, 
71-72 ;  should  aim  at  social  co- 
operation, 76 

Social  life.  The  fundamental  fact  of, 
33,  40 ;  the  whole  fabric  of  society 
persists  in,  37 ;  good,  83 ;  of  sec- 
ondary moment,  84 

Social  life  of  mankind,  Harmonious 
development  of  the,  156 ;  problems 
of,  solved  by  rational  methods  of 
control,  166 ;  essentially  a  coopera- 
tion, 185 ;  mutual  aid  and  mutual 
harmony  essential  to,  186 ;  func- 
tions of  the  state  within  the,  186 

Social  mind.  Definition  of  the  term, 
97;  function  of  the,  98;  a  con- 
sciousness of  unity,  99 ;  develop- 
ment of  the,  a  measure  of  progress, 
100-1 ;  germinal  condition  and 
relative  maturity  of  the,  153-54 ; 
development  of  the,  increases  har- 
mony, 154 ;  genuine  growth  of, 
155 ;  arriving  at  the  point  of  self- 
determination,  158 ;  evolution  of  a 
higher,  161 ;  progressively  less 
liable  to  destruction,  162 ;  har- 
monious development  by  the  ma- 


216 


INDEX 


turing  of  the,  164;  sphere  of  the 
control  of,  greater,  165 

Social  morphology,  102-25;  a  "law" 
in  science,  103 ;  a  descriptive  syn- 
thesis, 103-6;  the  law  of  evolu- 
tion, 106 ;  Spencer  on  evolution, 
107  ;  Darwin  on  growth  of  species, 
107 ;  two  objects  for  the  student  of 
evolution,  107-8 ;  the  formula  of 
synthesis,  109-10 ;  divergent  lines 
of  evolution.  111 ;  Darwin  and 
Natural  Selection,  112-14;  ques- 
tions about  Man,  115-16;  Com- 
parative Psychology  and  Sociology, 
;  116-18;       classification,      118-20; 

i  types    of    marriage,    120-23 ;     the 

\  true  affinities  in  classification,  124 ; 

V  the  growth  of  government  and  its 

relation  to  liberty,  125 

Social  organisms,  The  unity  of,  4-5 

Social  organization  must  be  taken 
into  account,  29-30 ;  must  be  just 
and  equitable,  55;  total  character 
of  the,  62 

Social  phenomenon.  The,  an  inter- 
action of  individuals,  30;  of  a 
crowd,  30-32 

Social  philosophy,  An  articulate, 
needed,  6;  the  subject-matter  of, 
7 ;  a  well-grounded,  needed,  43, 
82  ;  what  a  complete  exposition  of, 
would  involve,  83 ;  demand  for  a, 
164  ;  an  effort  to  form  a  purpose  to 
guide  the  future,  165 ;  the  induc- 
tive theory  of  evolution  at  the  back 
of  any  sound,  165 ;  and  moral 
problems,  166-84  ;  and  the  relation 
of  the  individual  to  the  state,  166 ; 
industrial  regulation,  168-71 ;  Old 
Age  Pensions,  173-77 ;  public  edu- 
cation, 180-81 ;  political  changes, 
182-83 ;  question  propounded  to, 
184 ;   the  general  problem  of,  199 

Social  progress.  Clearer  ideas  of, 
needed,  4 ;    defined,  8 ;    not  a  pro- 

'  cess  in  evolution,  8-10 ;  to  be  in- 
vestigated by  biological  methods, 
19-21 ;  essentially  an  improvement 
of  the  stock,  29 ;  implies  racial 
development,  38 ;  interfered  with, 
by  elimination  of  best  types,  53-55 ; 


a  certain  measure  of,  established, 
157 ;  aim  of  comparative  sociology 
to  measure,  164;  consists  in  har- 
monious development,  185 ;  con- 
ception of,  not  vitiated  by  any 
contradiction,  205 ;  embodies  a 
rational  philosophy,  205 

Social  relations,  Proper  adjustment 
of,  90 

Social  theory.  Movement  of  opinion 
in  the  light  of,  185 

Social  tradition,  33,  40 

Social  union,  Leading  principles  of, 
128;  kinship,  129-34;  authority, 
134-39;    citizenship,    139-48 

Social,  welfare.  Conditions  of,  198-99 

Social  will.  Existence  of  a,  95-96 

Social  worth,  A  true  conception  of, 
42  ;   two  lines  of  thought  on,  43 

Socialists,  4 

Society,  Herbert  Spencer  on,  5-6 ; 
evolution  of,  no  proof  of  progress, 
8-9 ;  consists  of  individuals,  29 ; 
has  rapidly  developed,  39;  the 
broad  duty  of,  eugenically,  55 ;  the 
organic  conception  of,  87 ;  a  very 
complex  structure,  88-90 ;  the 
ideal  development  of,  89 ;  Plato  on, 
164 ;  as  a  guardian,  202 ;  the 
reorganization  of,  according  to 
ethical  ideas,  205 

Society,  modern.  Forces  which  deter- 
mine a  man's  position  in,  47 

Sociological  effects.  The  reaction  of, 
unescapable,  28 

Sociology,  Specialism  a  necessity  and  a 
danger  in,  6  ;  made  a  science  by  the 
principle  of  survival  of  the  fittest, 
19  ;  not  the  same  as  either  biology  '* 
or  psychology,  30;  deals  with 
results  of  interplay  of  motives,  33  ; 
deals  with  man,  116;'  the  prime 
object  of,  118-' 

Sociology,  comparative.  The  aim  of, 
164 

Spain,  Political  and  religious  denuda- 
tion of  best  stocks  in,  54 

Sparta,  a  close  oligarchy,  141,  142 

Specialism,  Danger  of,  in  sociology,  6 

Spencer,  Herbert,  on  society  as  a 
sheet  of  metal  with  a  dint  in,  5-6 ; 


INDEX 


217 


general  law  of  fertility  and  devel- 
opment, 65 ;  his  conception  of  evo- 
lution, 107 

Stagnation  and  retrogression,  Long 
periods  of,  in  history,  159 

State  action,  the  combined  will  of 
individuals,  191 

State  activity  urged  by  the  demo- 
cratic element  in  politics,  167 

State  control,  Extension  of,  not  indis- 
criminate, 181 

State,  Growth  of  the,  126-48 ;  mutu- 
ality of  interests,  127-28;  prin- 
ciples of  social  union,  128 ;  kinship, 
129-34 ;  authority,  134-39 ;  citizen- 
ship, 139-48 ;  the  citizens  are  the, 
139-40 ;  resembles  the  commune 
140;  characteristics  of  the,  141 
the  city,  of  ancient  Greece,  141-43 
problems  of  the  modern,  143 ; 
government  of  dependencies,  144- 
45 ;  problem  of  nationality,  146- 
47 ;  evolution  of  the,  illustrates  the 
social  movement,  149 ;  various 
forms  of,  150 ;  a  problem,  150 ;  re- 
lation of  the,  to  the  individual, 
166-70 ;  restriction  of  sphere  of  the, 
^167;  extension  of  responsibility 
of  the,  167-70;  provision  for  the 
poor,  170-73 ;  Old  Age  Pensions, 
173-76 ;  and  the  unemployed,  177- 
80 ;  and  public  education,  180-81 ; 
political  changes  in  the,  182-84 ; 
responsibility  of,  for  the  individual, 
184 ;  definite  institutions  the  life 
of  the,  186-87 ;  a  compulsory  form 
of  association,  187 ;  legitimate 
functions  of  the,  188-89 ;  how  far 
cooperation  can  be  furthered  by 
the,  189 ;  principal  sphere  of  the, 
195-96 ;  duty  of  the,  to  recognize 
personal  liberty,  200 ;  organization 
of  public  services  by  the,  201 ;  and 
provision  for  efficient  civic  life, 
201 

State,  modern,  Foreign  relations  of 
the,  145 ;  the  dominant  type  of 
society,  150 ;  how  differentiated 
from  earlier  forms  of  society,  166 

Statesmanship,  The  general  problem 
of.  199 


Sterility   of   the   richer   classes,   46; 

of  the  fit,  48,  64 
Stock,  Good,  61 ;    the  pathological, 

64-65 
Stocks,  Infected,  not  wanted,  43  ;  we 

must    be    certain    of    irremovable 

viciousness  of,  45,  75 
Stocks,  inferior.  Multiplication  of,  64 ; 

possibilities  of,  70 
Strains,    Many    fundamental,    intri- 
cately blended,  69 
Struggle  for  existence,  A  continuous, 

18-19 ;    the  biologist  and  the,  19- 

25 ;    conception  of,  modified,  25 ; 

between    communities,  26;     elimi- 
nation  of    best    types    in    severe, 

53-55 
Subordination,  The  principle  of,  137- 

38 
Subvention,  Public,  to  the  needs  of 

poverty,  178 
Suffrage,  Benefits  of  extension  of  the, 

183 
Suffrage,  Roman,  Extension  of,  142 
Superior,  The,  has  duties  as  well  as 

privileges,  138-39 
Suppression,  The  idea  of,  extended  to 

that  of  punishment  and  retaliation, 

150-51 
Survival  value  of  the  social  group, 

25-26 
Synthesis,  Descriptive,  in  evolution, 

103-5;    and  true  law,   106;    the 

formula  of,  108-10,  116 

Tariff  reformers,  4 

Temperance  specialists  care  for  noth- 
ing else,  3 

Tendency,  Existence  of  a,  does  not 
make  it  desirable,  81 ;  some, 
desirable,  82 

Thebes  a  close  oligarchy,  142 

Thought,  The,  of  any  generation,  a 
social  product,  94-95 ;  develop- 
ment of,  154-55:  comparative 
study  of  ethico-religious,  155 ; 
extension  of  the  rational  control  of 
life  traced  in  the  history  of,  156 

Thrift,  Enthusiasts  for,  3 

Tiberius,  Emperor,  and  the  pro- 
vincial governor,  136 


218 


INDEX 


Trade  Unionists,  4 

Tradition  the  main  subject  of  socio- 
logical inquiry,  33-35,  40;  anal- 
ogous to  heredity  in  the  individual, 
34;  hands  on  the  whole  social 
environment,  35 ;  growth  of,  modi- 
fies individuals,  37 

Transvaal,  Autonomy  extended  to 
the,  144 

Tubercle,  The,  not  tubercular  stock, 
should  be  eliminated,  44-45, 

Tuberculosis  involves  no  mental  or 
moral  turpitude,  44 

Unemployment,  Treatment  of,  in  the 
Poor  Law  Reports,  73-74 ;  due 
to  various  causes,  171 ;  public 
provision  for,  177-78 ;  scheme  of 
insurance  against,  178 ;  the  labor 
exchanges  and,  179-80 

Unfit,  Elimination  of  the  hopelessly, 
78;  survival  of  the,  162 

Unfitness,  how  proven,  76 

Universalism,  A  code  of,  a  step  to 
deterioration,  26-27 

Universe,  Assumptions  of  progress  of 
the,  9,  20 


Variation,  Wide  limits  of,  for  society, 
40 

Wages,  Rise  in  real,  50 ;   government 
regulation  of,    169-70 ;    difference 
of,  in  good  and  bad  years,  178 
Wages  boards,  Action  of,  limited,  170 
Waste  of  effort.  How  to  avoid,  4-5 
Wastrels,  74 
Webb,    Sidney,    on    low   fertility   of 

English  intellectuals,  65 
Whetham,  W.  C.  D.,  quoted,  9 
Wigglesworth,    Dr.,    on   increase    of 

insanity,  51 
Will,  the  general.  Restraint  of,  196- 
97 ;   the  effective  exercise  of  the,  a 
condition  of  harmonious  develop- 
ment, 199 
Wisdom,  true.  The  beginning  of,  84 
Women,  New  opportunities  opened  to, 

65-66 
Women's  labor,  question  of,  168-69 
World  state,  How  a,  is  to  be  achieved, 
91 ;   possibility  of  a,  148 

Zulus,  Principles  of  liberty  cannot  be 
denied  to  the,  145 

C.    A.   NELSON. 


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Blumenthal  Lectures.  Hewitt  Lectures, 

Carpentier  Lectures.  Jesup  Lectures. 

Julius  Beer  Lectures. 

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HEWITT  LECTURES 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  MONOPOLY.     By  John  Bates  Clark,  LL.D., 

Professor  of  Political   Economy,    Columbia  University.      12mo, 
cloth,  pp.  vi  +  128.     Price,  $1.25  net. 

POWER.  By  Charles  Edward  Lucre,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Me- 
chanical Engineering,  Columbia  University.  12mo,  cloth,  pp. 
vii  +  316.    Illustrated.     Price,  $2.00  net. 

THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION.  Its  Basis  and  Scope.  By  Henry 
Edward  Crampton,  Ph.D.,  Professor  of  Zoology,  Columbia  Uni- 
versity.    12mo,  cloth,  pp.  ix  +  311.     Price,  $1.60  net. 

MEDIEVAL  STORY  AND  THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  THE  SOCIAL 
IDEALS  OF  ENGLISH-SPEAKING  PEOPLE.  By  William 
WiTHERLE  Lawrence,  Ph.D.,  Associate  Professor  of  English,  Co- 
lumbia University.    12mo,  cloth,  pp.  xiv  +  236.    Price,  $1.50  net. 

JESUP  LECTURES 

LIGHT.  By  Richard  C.  Maclaurin,  LL.D.,  Sc.D.,  President  of  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology.  12mo,  cloth,  pp.  ix  +  251. 
Portrait  and  figures.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

SCIENTIFIC  FEATURES  OF  MODERN  MEDICINE.  By  Frederic 
S.  Lee,  Ph.D.,  Dalton  Professor  of  Physiology,  Columbia  Univer- 
sity.    12mo,  cloth,  vi  +  183.     Price,  $1.50  net. 


LECTURES  ON  SCIENCE,  PHILOSOPHY,  AND  ART.  A  series 
of  twenty-one  lectures  descriptive  in  non-technical  language  of 
the  achievements  in  Science,  Philosophy,  and  Art.  Svo,  cloth. 
Price,  $5.00  net. 

LECTURES  ON  LITERATURE.  A  series  of  eighteen  lectures  on 
literary  art  and  on  the  great  literatures  of  the  world,  ancient  and 
modem.     Svo,  cloth,  pp.  404.     Price,  $2.00  net. 


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BLUMENTHAL  LECTURES 

POLITICAL   PROBLEMS   OF   AMERICAN    DEVELOPMENT.    By 

Albert  Shaw,  LL.D.,  Editor  of  the  Beview  of  Beviews.     12mo, 
cloth,  pp.  vii  +  268.    Price,  $1.50  net. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  GOVERNMENT  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES. 

By  WooDROw  Wilson,  LL.D.,  President  of  Princeton  University. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  vii  +  236.     Price,  §1.50  net. 

THE  PRINCIPLES  OF  POLITICS  FROM  THE  VIEWPOINT  OF 
THE  AMERICAN  CITIZEN.  By  Jeremiah  W.  Jenks,  LL.D., 
Professor  of  Political  Economy  and  Politics  in  Cornell  University. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  xviii  +  187.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

THE  COST  OF  OUR  NATIONAL  GOVERNMENT.  By  Henry 
Jones  Ford,  Professor  of  Politics  in  Princeton  University.  12mo, 
cloth,  pp.  XV  +  144..    Price,  $1.50  net. 

THE  BUSINESS  OF  CONGRESS.  By  Hon.  Samuel  W.  McCall, 
Member  of  Congress  for  Massachusetts.  12mo,  cloth,  pp.  vii  + 
215.     Price,  $1.60  net. 

JULIUS  BEER  LECTURES 

SOCIAL  EVOLUTION  AND  POLITICAL  THEORY.    By  Leonard 

T.  HoBHOusE,  Professor  of  Sociology  in  the  University  of  London. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  ix  +  218.     Price,  $150  net. 

CARPENTIER  LECTURES 

THE  NATURE  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  LAW.  By  John  Chip- 
man  Gray,  LL.D.,  Royall  Professor  of  Law  in  Harvard  University. 
12mo,  cloth,  pp.  xii  +  332.     Price,  $1.50  net. 

WORLD  ORGANIZATION  AS  AFFECTED  BY  THE  NATURE 
OF  THE  MODERN  STATE.  By  Hon.  David  Jayne  Hill, 
American  Ambassador  to  Germany.  12mo,  cloth,  pp.  ix  +  214. 
Price,  $1.50  net. 


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